


Event Horizon

by dracoqueen22



Series: Event Horizon [2]
Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Family Drama, Family Secrets, M/M, Post Season 1, Spark Bond, Spark Sex, Tactile
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-04
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 03:24:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 46,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracoqueen22/pseuds/dracoqueen22
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ratchet and Sunstreaker are forced to reveal a hidden truth while the Autobots struggle to come to terms with their absent leader.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AU to season two though it may reference some S2 events. Contains characters from G1 put into this universe. Some may consider this mechpreg though I don't. There is no birthing and/or building of a protoform within the body of the carrier. Also, there is no explicit examples within this story, just references to a past incident.

“Ratchet!”  
  
The familiar voice pours into the balmy air, along with the sight of a brilliantly crimson mech as he launches himself across open space and throws himself at Ratchet. The medic has seconds to brace himself before he has an armful of Sideswipe, the sound of metal clashing against metal ringing loudly.  
  
An assortment of restrained amusement echoes from the bots of the Earth team, a sound that Ratchet relishes as being rare as of late. So he abides by the humiliation of being tackled with affection by Sideswipe and briefly returns the embrace.  
  
“Didja miss me?” Sideswipe asks as he picks Ratchet up bodily – easy enough as he and his twin have at least four feet on Ratchet – and tries to spin him around.  
  
“Like one misses a case of cosmic rust,” Ratchet replies drily and vents loudly as Sideswipe sets him back down on his feet, patting Ratchet on the shoulder.  
  
“Awww.” Sideswipe cranes his neck, looking all around them, optics searching the face of each mech behind Ratchet.  
  
Humor fades and Ratchet lowers his vocalizer. “First Aid's not here, Sideswipe. We haven't heard from his team yet.”  
  
A smile stretches Sideswipe's mouthplates, but Ratchet has known the twins too long not to recognize a fake response. “It's okay, Ratch. I'm sure he'll show up eventually.” He lifts his shoulders in a creak and whine of gears that haven't seen his attending physician in millennia -- err, kilovorns. (Ratchet hates that he's become so accustomed to using human time measurements that it has even infected his Cybertronian speech patterns.)  
  
He then passes Ratchet, arms splayed wide in greeting. “Bumblebee!”  
  
A trill of notes and a few beeps are the yellow mech's acknowledgment before Sideswipe bumrushes Bumblebee, too. He lifts the smaller bot further into the air than he did Ratchet, swinging him around and around.  
  
Shaking his head, Ratchet returns his attention to the rather large shuttle that had landed on Earth, at coordinates some distance from their base. They could never be certain the 'Cons (notably, Soundwave) weren't tracking the new arrivals. The shuttle itself has seen better days, blaster marks scoring the hull and the plating riddled with dents.  
  
A golden-yellow mech steps out of the bay, sunlight gleaming off his polished armor, every inch of him the tall and imposing warrior. Ratchet feels his spark whirl in response. It's been millennia since he'd last seen Sunstreaker, and though Ratchet isn't the sort for overly dramatic greetings such as Sideswipe initiated, a part of him is sorely tempted. His fingers ache to touch, his frame feels too small to contain himself, and his spark is leaping and pulsing within his chassis.  
  
Sunstreaker approaches him and stops while only a few feet separate them. His head tilts to the side as his optics leisurely rake Ratchet from head to pede, and something a lot like relief cascades through Ratchet. A tension he didn't know he had seeps out of him and he lifts a hand.  
  
He has to cycle his vocalizer twice to remove the static. “Sunstreaker,” Ratchet greets. “Welcome to Earth.”  
  
Sunstreaker isn't the sort for overly affectionate greetings either, at least not in public with the optics of their fellow Autobots openly watching their reunion. He takes Ratchet's hand, shaking it modestly. “It's not Cybertron,” he says.  
  
“But it's home for now,” Ratchet replies, his tone implying far more than his words can manage.  
  
“Ratchet, my mech!”  
  
Reluctantly, Ratchet releases Sunstreaker's hand and shifts to greet the last three mechs as they descend from the Lightyear, their vessel. The sight of Perceptor makes Ratchet grin from ear to ear – at last! Another scientist to help him understand this primitive human technology. Bluestreak just behind is a sight for sore optics, and bringing up the rear is Jazz, hand raised in greeting, a twitch and a rhythm to his motions that is achingly familiar.  
  
It feels a lot like family coming home, though Ratchet would never say such a bathetic thing aloud.  
  
“Jazz,” Ratchet greets warmly, hand out in an all-too-human greeting that the shorter mech instantly bypasses in favor of an embrace. Less enthusiastic than Sideswipe's, but equally warm and appreciated.  
  
“Nice planet,” the third in command observes, drawing back to look around at the grass beneath them, the tall trees concealing their position from prying human eyes, the bright blue sky and the fluffy white clouds as they trail past. “A mech could get used ta this.”  
  
Ratchet watches as Jazz's optics trail over the members of Ratchet's team – everyone since Ratchet had entrusted the humans to bridge them back. They always seemed ridiculously enthused to be granted such an opportunity and Ratchet hadn't planned to be gone any longer than a cycle.  
  
“Where's Prime?”  
  
The silence that sweeps through the concealed clearing reignites the heavy tension. Ratchet can feel the optics boring into the back of his helm. As commander in Prime's absence, Ratchet knows it is up to him to relay the unfortunate truth.  
  
“There's been a... complication,” Ratchet says, as delicately as he muster, though he should merely resort to his usual lack of tact. There's no gentle way to tell them what occurred after the battle against Unicron, especially since Ratchet himself had not been there.  
  
“He's with the Decepticons!” Bulkhead blurts out, frame rattling as though he can't contain the truth any longer.  
  
Well... that's one way to put it, Ratchet supposes. It saves him from relying on tact, which his programming has never been good with in the first place.  
  
“What?!?”  
  
The startled exclamations are in perfect harmony as the new arrivals stare at Ratchet and his team with nothing short of startled confusion and disbelief. Their Prime? Joining the Decepticons? How absurd! They must wonder if Ratchet and his team had lost their processors.  
  
Ratchet sighs – he has picked up far too many mannerisms from the humans. “Come to our base. All of you need energon and I need to look at Bluestreak's knee.” He had noticed the gunner trying and failing to hide a limp. “I'll explain everything.”  
  
He watches as the new arrivals exchange glances, Jazz's optics narrowing in deep contemplation, no doubt hundreds of thought-patterns coalescing and colliding at once.

Ratchet activates his comm. “Rafael? Bridge us back.”

o0o0o

 

Jazz's arrival means that Ratchet can finally bow out and surrender command to someone with a higher ranking than himself, much to his relief. It isn't so much that he despises being in command, but he can never shake the feeling that it is not his place. He is better suited for the medbay, for the occasional scientific tinkering, and Ratchet always felt he were stepping into the footsteps of a mech much greater than himself. Even if only temporarily.  
  
He spends cycles getting Jazz up to spec on everything. From their first arrival on Earth, their numerous clashes with the Decepticons, the involvement with the humans, and the last ugly battle against Unicron. There is only one secret that Ratchet keeps close to his chassis, and this only because there is someone else who needs to hear it first. As soon as that message is relayed, than Ratchet will gladly pass on the details to his commanding officer.  
  
Ratchet leaves Jazz in the main room, pondering the circumstances and taking the late watch with Bumblebee. The others have settled down in various locations throughout their refitted base, having to double up on rooms since space is a premium. Part of Ratchet is almost giddy. Now that Perceptor is here, he has plans for the science bot to take a stab at that formula for Synthetic Energon. With any luck, they might have a viable, testable sample within days. Perhaps even weeks. One that won't have disastrous consequences like Ratchet's own failed attempt.  
  
He never wishes to make such a mistake again. Optimus had forgiven him his harsh words, but both he and Prime had known they were Ratchet's honest opinion. And Ratchet has yet to forgive himself.  
  
In any case, Ratchet gleefully relinquishes command of the Autobot presence on Earth to Jazz. The new arrivals have spread themselves throughout the base, Jazz and Bumblebee have taken the midnight-hour watch, and Ratchet is now free to procure some recharge of his own, if he so chooses. Except that he doesn't. Because now that there is peace and quiet, Ratchet has only one mech he wishes to seek.  
  
He knows exactly where to look.  
  
Their washracks here on Earth are pitiful compared to what they used to have. Two stalls spewing out cold water with human bedsheets to use as drying cloths. They work in a pinch, but Ratchet has felt on more than one occasion that the humans are only deigning to give the Autobots their scraps and nothing else. Which has not endeared him to Earth's native inhabitants in the slightest.  
  
Of course, Sunstreaker is never one to let a little thing like lack of supplies and adequate facilities stop him from pursuing his favorite past time – washing, oiling, and polishing his plating. It would be the first place he'd go, even before he found out whichever quarters he would share with Sideswipe. Or, as the case may be, whatever berth he might squeeze into with Ratchet.  
  
The sound of falling water is the first to reach Ratchet's audials, and as he approaches the washracks, a quick scan informs him that there is only one mech present within. A perfect opportunity.  
  
The door is partially open, and Ratchet pushes it the rest of the way, pausing in the door frame to admire a view he hasn't been privy to in millennia. Yellow plating gleams under the fluorescent lighting as water trickles over reinforced armor and dips into seams. Sunstreaker has found the soft-clothed brushes brought for the Autobot's use, and Ratchet watches as he carefully applies it to his frame, wiping away all evidence of Earth dust and the grime of being trapped in a small shuttle with other mechs.  
  
Ratchet's spark does that ridiculous pulse and flutter reaction again, as though he's a young bot once more, optics landing upon Sunstreaker for the first time. Though, even then, Ratchet had not been so young.  
  
“I can feel you watching me.” Sunstreaker's voice echoes hollowly in the tiny washracks, pinging around the tiled walls and reverberating in Ratchet's audials.  
  
His mouthplates curl up, a chuckle escaping him before he can stop it. “With a view such as this, I cannot help myself.”  
  
And the dance begins. The foreplay of words, each carefully chosen, a response cautiously measured and given. Sunstreaker pretending he doesn't give a frag; Ratchet playing that he has better things to do.  
  
In the end, they always find themselves in the same place, sharing a berth and curled together in such a way that no other mech would believe unless they'd seen it with their own optics.  
  
The water shuts off with a creak of rusty, old pipes straining under too much pressure. Sunstreaker swipes one of the cotton sheets from a folded stack nearby and half-turns, the white sheet moving thoroughly over his frame.  
  
“True,” Sunstreaker agrees, his optics a gleaming sapphire in the overhanging lights. “There's a real dearth of attractive mech around here.”  
  
At his side, Ratchet's fingers twitch, all too willing to take the sheet from Sunstreaker and help his partner finish drying his frame. Yet, there's something in the air, a stink of awkward tension that neither of them are equipped to dispel. Not with their equal lack of consideration.  
  
“... Let me help you with that,” Ratchet says. Frag tact. It's never done him any good before, and if being blunt will get him closer to Sunstreaker sooner, than Ratchet is all for it. He's waited millennium to see Sunstreaker again. He's tired of being patient.  
  
He's fragging tired of this whole war, truth be told.  
  
Sunstreaker smirks, but dangles one corner of the sheet in Ratchet's direction. “You just want to put your servos all over me.”  
  
“Guilty as charged.” Some of the tension lessens as Ratchet strides into the room, putting a bold stride into his movement. He gestures for Sunstreaker to turn around as he takes the cottony sheet and begins to swipe it over the broad swaths of Sunstreaker's dorsal armor.  
  
Their electromagnetic fields come into dizzying contact with their proximity, and Ratchet vents softly as he's once again surrounded by the sensation of Sunstreaker. An altogether familiar and intoxicating feeling. It's like finally coming home, for all that they are trapped on Earth, lightyears away from Cybertron. He can feel Sunstreaker's anxiety and tension and relief and happiness, as sure as Sunstreaker can feel Ratchet's own.  
  
Ratchet carefully sweeps the soft cloth over Sunstreaker's armor, until it gleams beneath his fingers, urging him to touch. The scent of Sunstreaker, all particular oils and melted-metal from his blades and the scent of other, of space where Sunstreaker has been most recently and Ratchet hasn't set foot off this miserable little planet in years... Ratchet's olfactory senses are all but giddy with the newness of it all.  
  
Sunstreaker shifts minutely under his touch, barely noticeable save for the fact Ratchet is paying such close attention. “How long has it been?” he asks quietly.  
  
By the Allspark, it's a length of time that doesn't even bear counting. Ratchet clears static from his vocalizer. “Too many kilovorns,” he replies and leans forward, nuzzling against the back of Sunstreaker's shoulder, all that he can reach with their difference in height. Electricity crackles between them.  
  
So... Ratchet's desire is not as one-sided as Sunstreaker might lead him to believe. Cold as space on the outside he may seem. But Ratchet knows the truth, the side that Sunstreaker lets precious few see.  
  
“Does that door lock?”  
  
Ratchet snorts inelegantly. “We hardly having living quarters much less private washracks. And when have you ever cared about being watched?”  
  
Sunstreaker makes a staticky hum. “I was asking for your benefit.” He turns around, grabbing Ratchet's hand and pulling it upward so that his mouthplates could nimble on incredibly sensitive fingers. “There's no privacy here.”  
  
“Not with Bluestreak in the medbay which, consequently, doubles as my berth,” Ratchet mutters sourly, but the words are distracted, his ventilations off rhythm with every press of Sunstreaker's mouth.  
  
“Mmm. We'll make do.” His optics darken, oscillating down to narrow bands of sapphire. “What about the humans?”  
  
“Gone home.”  
  
“ _Good_.” It's practically a purr, the way that single word caresses Ratchet's audial and shivers down his plating.  
  
Sunstreaker releases his hold on Ratchet's hand, but only long enough to grab Ratchet by the shoulders, directing him backward so that he collides with the metallic wall with a dull thunk. The solid hit makes Ratchet's entire frame tremble, but not in an undesirable way. Ratchet groans, heat suffusing his plating, his spark spinning faster out of sheer anticipation.  
  
He lifts his hands, nimble digits dipping into visible seams, caressing sensitive wiring beneath Sunstreaker's plating and dragging a soft ventilation from Sunstreaker. One yellow hand pins Ratchet to the wall, pressing against his shoulder, while the other returns the favor, beginning a hurried exploration of Ratchet's frame. Unexplored territory for Sunstreaker, since this is the first time he's seen Ratchet in his Earth alt-mode.  
  
Sunstreaker himself should be in protoform grey, but as Jazz is sneaky, he has already acquired Earth alt-modes for his entire team. They were, in fact, orbiting Earth for several solar cycles before Ratchet noticed signs of their presence. He suspects that he only realized they were planetside because Jazz _allowed_ him to.  
  
The difference in leadership had never been so obvious until then. Which is just another reason Ratchet is all too willing to surrender command.  
  
Besides, he likes Sunstreaker's choice in alt-mode. Yellow is no surprise, but the sleek lines of the lamborghini call to Ratchet's fingers. He can't help but touch, drag his fingers over the smooth metal, dip into the small crevices, get a light grip on bundles of sensory wires and _tug_.  
  
Sunstreaker groans static and leans forward, arching into the lightly forceful touch. Their chestplates brush, electricity dancing between their frames, and Ratchet can feel the thrumming of Sunstreaker's spark in that contact. Can feel the heat and energy of it behind the thick armor of Sunstreaker's chestplates. A knee nudges between Ratchet's own, the plating of their legs coming into wonderful, electric contact.  
  
Nimble yellow fingers are quick to stroke over white and red armor, finding the seams that elicit the most vocal response. Ratchet's sensitive neck cables. The conductors in his hips. The cluster of sensors in his chevron...  
  
Ratchet moans, trapped between Sunstreaker and the wall, their energy fields making his engine rumble with need. He digs his fingers into the tiny gaps in Sunstreaker's armor, curling the tips around the edges and pulling Sunstreaker against him. Metal whines as it scrapes – Sunstreaker will bitch about his paint job later – but Ratchet can't be bothered to care. Not right now. Not with Sunstreaker here and close and _familiar_.  
  
Sapphire optics look down at Ratchet with intense focus, Sunstreaker's mouthplates parting as though his vents aren't enough to expel the heat rising in his circuits.  
  
“Missed you,” Sunstreaker says, in Cybertronian no less, his accent faint but still detectable even after all these millennia.  
  
Ratchet shudders, his spark pulsing, chestplates threatening to crack. “... Need you,” is all he manages to get out, vocalizer unwilling to respond to his commands. Overload creeps up on him, dancing on the edge of his control.  
  
Sunstreaker's optics flare at him, fingers clenching down on Ratchet's shoulder. “Have me,” he growls, always offering, rough tone speaking of his own pending overload.  
  
Any response on Ratchet's part is lost in the roar of his overload, his entire frame trembling as energy races through him, crackling across his plating and making his cooling fans work overtime to compensate for the extra heat. Sunstreaker ventilates sharply and arches against Ratchet, dragged into overload by the electricity crawling over yellow armor, his spark pulsing hot and bright, tangible through the contact in their armor.  
  
Sunstreaker slumps, releasing his grip on Ratchet, but only so that he rest the tip of his helm on Ratchet's shoulder instead. His hands rest gently on the wall to either side of Ratchet to keep his balance, his optics shuttered as his cooling fans click on. Ratchet lifts his hands, lightly stroking yellow plating.  
  
For a long moment, the only sound in the room is that of their fans whirring.  
  
“You don't know how relieved I am that you have made it here,” Ratchet says softly, breaking the gentle quiet.  
  
Sunstreaker chuckles. “I can guess. You've no warriors here. Prime's gone. You're surrounded by... fleshies.” The distaste in Sunstreaker's tone is a near echo of Ratchet's own original opinion.  
  
“The children aren't so bad,” Ratchet replies, words echoing in the otherwise empty washrack. “They can be tolerated. There are other things of greater concern.”  
  
Sunstreaker straightens, meeting him optic to optic. “Like Megatron.”  
  
“Yes.” Ratchet pauses, wondering if it's even possible to phrase what he wants to say tactfully, or if tact will fail him now as it always does. “And...”

  
“And what, Ratchet?” Sunstreaker asks, their intimacy with each other making it easy for Sunstreaker to read into the medic's hesitation.  
  
Ratchet sighs. “Knock Out.” What he says is not Knock Out however, but the Cybertronian version of said mech's name that should be so familiar to them.  
  
Sunstreaker abruptly stills, drawing back until there is a tangible distance between them, their chestplates no longer touching. “You found him?” Longing vibrates in his tone, longing and no small amount of relief.  
  
Ratchet winces. Finding Knock Out is perhaps the only bit of good news. All of the other complications make things not so comforting.  
  
“He's here, Sunstreaker,” Ratchet replies. “On Earth. Knock Out is here.”

 

***


	2. Chapter 2

“Here?” Sunstreaker shakes his head, sliding back to fold his arms over his chestplate. “But you didn't introduce him with the others.”  
  
He frowns and Ratchet can all but see the cogs turning, the facts being considered, and the moment when Sunstreaker realizes just what it is Ratchet is not saying.  
  
Those blue optics darken with thinly veiled despair. “No.”  
  
Ratchet sighs again, an all too human response. “Yes,” he says, much to his own grief. “He didn't recognize me. I don't know how or when Megatron got his claws into our youngling but he's a Decepticon now.”  
  
Silence sweeps into the washracks. Sunstreaker is twitching, his armor cooling with audible pings and pops of metal.  
  
“He didn't recognize you,” Sunstreaker repeats flatly.  
  
“No.” Then again, Ratchet's frame has changed since he'd last seen Knock Out. Especially since he'd chosen an Earth alt-mode.  
  
Eons ago, Ratchet had been more white than red, his helm decorations more pronounced, his plating thinner and more flexible. He hadn't bore the armor of battle, nor the kibble of an Earth alt-mode, nor the decorative lines in his faceplate. No wonder his youngling hadn't recognized him.  
  
And eons ago, his youngling hadn't been dressed up in battle armor either, nor had he bore weapons, nor had he been taught anything of Cybertronian medicine save for some emergency skills Ratchet made sure everyone in his slapped-together family knew.  
  
Sunstreaker's fingers rap over his armor, where he's crossed his arms. “Reprogramming?” he asks, after a solid moment of silence.  
  
Ratchet's hand drags down his face – another habit he's picked up from the humans, Jack specifically. “Or processor damage. I can't say for certain because I couldn't get a useful scan at the time.”  
  
It's a point of shame for Ratchet that he didn't even recognize his youngling until they came into close contact during the synethetic energon incident. Prior to that, Ratchet had only seen Knock Out through the vid feeds of his team. He'd heard mention of Knock Out during their encounters, had even seen the mech through the vid feeds, and had considered that they were one and the same bot. But Knock Out had looked so different than Ratchet remembered him. From his paint scheme down to his frame.  
  
However, that moment in the caves, when Ratchet had lain there, bleeding out the synethetic energon and bathing in shame, his scans had detected a familiar presence. But more than that, his spark had leapt in recognition. Shock had swept through him, completely overriding his logic centers, making him incapable of forming a coherent thought. His youngling? With the Decepticons? It was a confirmation too painful to bear considering.  
  
They'd thought him gone. Hiding in a neutral colony beyond their reach at best. Dead at worst. But to have joined the Decepticons? Such a possibility hadn't occurred to either Ratchet or Sunstreaker. Which begged the question as to why they hadn't encountered him before, in all the eons the Autobots and Decepticons have been engaged in this increasingly pointless and drawn out war.  
  
Now... now Ratchet knows that his youngling is alive, and there is no one he could tell, no member of his team that is aware of the truth regarding Knock Out. No one who knows Ratchet's dirty little secret. He could only stay within their base, watching from his team's vid feeds as his youngling struts at Starscream's side, faces down Ratchet's own allies, and cringe every time Prime landed a hit, or Bulkhead managed to pummel his way past Breakdown.  
  
How many times had he stood there, watching the monitor, barely able to contain his shuddering, part of him desperately straining to fulfill his urge to protect? How many times had his spark contracted watching his youngling gleefully attack the Autobots, Decepticon red optics vivid and bright? How many times had he forced himself to step back, not shout at the screen that it was his youngling out there, that Megatron had crossed the final line?  
  
And how many times had Ratchet argued with himself not to reveal the truth, that he and Sunstreaker had broken one of Cybertron's most fundamental laws?  
  
Words could not fully express the dilemma Ratchet had found himself suffering as of late.  
  
“What if you could?”  
  
Sunstreaker's voice cut into Ratchet's cascading thoughts, causing him to focus on his partner once again. “Could what?”  
  
“Scan him more in depth,” Sunstreaker says carefully, as though he were already crafting some elaborate plan. Knowing his partner, Ratchet wouldn't put it past him. “Could you fix him?”  
  
Ratchet's optics focus. “It depends,” he hedges. “I don't know enough to say for sure.”  
  
His uncertainty seems to have no bearing on Sunstreaker, who merely nods with confidence. “You can,” he says, foot tapping an idle cadence on the metal floor. “You're the best medic Cybertron's ever seen. We'll just have to get him back first.”  
  
For the first time, Ratchet feels he completely understands the human expression for one's jaw to drop. “.... What?” He gropes for something tactful to say and as always, tact fails him. “Primus, Sunstreaker! We haven't an idea what's going on! One doesn't simply stride onto the Nemesis, grab a Decepticon, and waltz back out!”  
  
“Have you even tried?” Sunstreaker demands, and then waves a hand as though dismissing himself. “All we have to do is find out, then you can fix him.”  
  
Ratchet straightens, shoulders held back so that the height difference between them doesn't mean a bit of slag. “And just how do you expect to do that?” he demands. “No one here is a skilled hacker. Nor do we have Mirage!” Some of his calm shatters, one hand waving wildly through the air. “And aside from that, how do you expect to explain this to the rest of the Autobots?”  
  
“With the truth,” Sunstreaker says simply, with a look to his optics, a churlish set to his mouthplates that has stubborn written all over it.  
  
Ratchet gapes. There is simply no better word to describe his response. He stares at Sunstreaker as though the yellow mech has finally lost his processors like the rest of their allies have claimed for all these vorns. Like Sunstreaker hasn't voiced all of the thoughts that have occupied Ratchet's own processors. Like the truth is so simple, so easy, that is has no consequences.  
  
“The truth,” Ratchet repeats flatly, spark yearning for it to be possible and warring with his logic, with the side of him that's been a war-time medic for more vorns than he can count, that's had to watch his own species mercilessly slay one another on an endless battlefield. “You mean that you intend to expose our longest held secret on the slim possibility that our friends will overlook the fact we've been lying to them all these vorns and leap at the opportunity to help? That we'll face no consequences?”  
  
Sunstreaker snorts, the response sounding alien to Ratchet, as though such a human mannerism doesn't quite suit the yellow mech. “Aren't you the one always waxing on about the virtues of the Autobots?”  
  
Ratchet snarls, his hand whipping through the air, aggravation warring with frustration and grief and shame. “They – we – are Autobots not saints. We broke a law, Sunstreaker!” His voice is loud, too loud, echoing on the empty walls of the washracks. Loud enough for any passing mech to easily hear. When did Ratchet abandon his restraint?  
  
“That was an accident,” Sunstreaker retorts, rolling his optics in a decent approximation of human exasperation.  
  
“An accident with intention!” Ratchet grits out, though he really, really doesn't care to revisit this old discussion-cum-argument.  
  
Sunstreaker dismisses him with another wave of his hand. “Whatever. Besides, who cares about those old laws anyway? Cybertron's dead. The Council's dead. All we've got left is whatever we manage to scrounge together.” He vents loudly and leans forward, until their faces are inches apart. “Including our youngling.”  
  
Silence sweeps through the room.  
  
“If I might interject a comment?”  
  
Ratchet startles at the unexpected voice, whirling toward the doorway. He hadn't even heard the door slide open! Sunstreaker is no less surprised, armor clamping down defensively. Neither of their sensors had reacted until now, which shouldn't come as such a shock considering who is leaning against the frame.  
  
“Jazz,” Ratchet says, consciously powering down his battle systems and ventilating loudly. “How much did you hear?”  
  
“Who cares?” Sunstreaker demands belligerently, shooting Ratchet a look and pinging him across internal comms. --He already knows the truth! What does it matter if he heard us?--  
  
Ratchet ignores him.  
  
Jazz waves a white-plated hand through the air dismissively. “Enough. And I have to say, Ratch. I think the shiny daffodil's right.”  
  
Sunstreaker, predictably, bristles at the nickname.  
  
Ratchet has to reboot his audials, unsure if he heard his superior correctly. “... Pardon?”  
  
“I hate to admit it, but Cyberton is dead,” Jazz says, his optics shifting slowly between Ratchet and Sunstreaker. “Especially if Megatron has launched a chunk of dark energon at it. Those old rules shouldn't matter anymore.”  
  
Ratchet shifts with a hiss of pistons and a clatter of metal on metal. “Maybe so. But we have enough problems without adding this to it! Everyone already looks at Sunstreaker's like he's two clicks from joining the Decepticons!”  
  
“Slag it, Ratchet!” Sunstreaker snarls, sliding until he's between his mate and Jazz, optics flaring furiously. “You're acting as though you don't give a frag about our youngling!”  
  
It is an accusation Sunstreaker could have made through comms, but he hadn't. He'd wanted Jazz to hear it, to bear witness. His words echo in the washrack, vibrating in Ratchet's audials.  
  
He freezes, world narrowing down to a pinprick that consists of nothing more than Sunstreaker and the accusation that tears at Ratchet's very spark. He feels a shudder race through his frame, his plating clamped down tightly. Rage swells withing him, turning his worldview into a metaphorical shade of scarlet.  
  
“How dare you,” Ratchet grits out, every world carefully enunciated as he glares up at his partner. No, they haven't taken the step of actual spark-bonding, but that shouldn't matter. They've been together long enough that Sunstreaker should understand without that bond.  
  
Ratchet's spark wrenches furiously, so hard that he gropes at the seam of his chestplates without making the conscious decision to do so. He aches, hurt and shame vibrating through him.  
  
Vorns of being alone flash before Ratchet, pulled out of his memory banks with stark detail. Such is the curse of Cybertronian memory. Nothing forgotten. No particular left vague and hazy. Nothing short of removal and deletion capable of easing the sting.  
  
“I carried him,” Ratchet says, his voice soft, but heavy, giving lie to the anger boiling inside of him. “I am the one who went on sabbatical to hide the truth. I am the one who lied to our Prime and I'm the one who had to let go. Me!” He takes a step closer, banging his palm over his chest plates. “Me! Not you! How dare you--”  
  
“--Whoa, Ratch. Easy there,” Jazz says, always the peacekeeper as the tries to insert his smaller frame between medic and frontliner. A perilous place to be right now, but Jazz has always enjoyed dancing on the edge of danger.  
  
He's said too much. Ratchet backs down a step, but not because Jazz had interceded. There are things that he needs to say to Sunstreaker without overhearing audials. And he'd best not say them when hanging on the razor's edge of fury. Nevertheless...  
  
He glares at Sunstreaker and bites out a single, sharp reply. “Frag you.”  
  
Ratchet turns, pushes past both Jazz and his partner, and strides out of the washracks, heading for the only solace he has: his medbay.

 

***


	3. Chapter 3

The halls are silent, empty of insomniac mechs. Ratchet passes by the main room, but only Bumblebee is there at the console, optics fixed on the numerous screens. He waves a hand at Ratchet in greeting, but something in Ratchet's stride warns him away from making conversation. Wise mech.   
  
Another hallway leads to what Ratchet is calling his medbay, though it barely has enough space for a berth, a storage closet, and what few pieces of equipment he's managed to construct out of their supplies and what pittances the humans have allowed. His true diagnostic instrumentation is in the control room. His “medbay” consists of two rooms, divided by a wall with a two-way mirror, and the inner room is where Ratchet keeps the berth, for the privacy of his patient. There are other, collapsible berths in the main room when Ratchet needs to use his primary diagnostics.   
  
Before the arrival of Jazz's team, those recovering would do so in their respective quarters, leaving the private room for Ratchet to use as his own. There is no luxury of that anymore.   
  
More quarters will have to be constructed, built underground, hewn into the space that the US government has so kindly granted them. But for now, sharing space it is.   
  
Right now, Bluestreak is Ratchet's only patient and he's recharging soundly on the berth, twitching a bit in his recharge. There's nothing wrong with him a night of solid recharge, some good Energon, and bit of rest won't cure. His knee joint needed some cleaning and adjustments, but it'll be good as new come morning.   
  
Jazz had done an excellent job of maintaining his team. Which is to be expected. Between he and Prowl, the Autobots will be able to keep themselves together, even without Optimus. Though Ratchet is in no hurry to have Prowl land on Earth. So much of present culture would fry the poor mech's logic circuits.   
  
Quietly backing out of the room, Ratchet leaves Bluestreak to his recharge and returns to the tiny outer room. The desk shoved in the corner has a half-completed pressure regulator sitting on it, so Ratchet clicks on the lamp and pulls his tools out of the drawers, setting them next to the regulator. There are several aging systems within their base that are in desperate need of replacement parts. And as usual, Ratchet has had to craft most of these by hand.   
  
He lifts a wrench and a plasma torch, eying the broken regulator, unsure of where to start in finishing the repairs. It feels a lot like trying to tape a leaky hydraulic line – it'll work temporarily but in the end, the tear's still there. The more he fixes, the more things break. The more shoddy Earth technology remains incompatible, and the less quality energon there is to go around.   
  
Sometimes, Ratchet feels like he's been trapped in this endless war since he was first given life by the Allspark. It seems like all he has ever known is this constant struggle between Autobot and Decepticon, a struggle that always seemed pointless. In the beginning, the two factions had wanted the same things! And now... now Ratchet can't even begin to guess what Megatron truly intends.   
  
And Knock Out...  
  
Is it reprogramming? Processor damage? Or will they be forced to acknowledge something much more painful, that their youngling had _chosen_ to join the Decepticons?   
  
Another painful pulse echoes in Ratchet's spark.   
  
How long has it been since he carried Knock Out? How long since he and Sunstreaker made the conscious decision to procreate illegally? Sometimes, the millennia all twist together in such a way that Ratchet fears he'll die in this war. He'll rust into pieces, unable to put his broken frontliner partner back together again, unable to speak to his youngling face to face.   
  
The place within him where the bond between creator and youngling used to be feels so empty. Ratchet pings that connection and receives nothing in return. No answer. He hasn't in such a long time that Ratchet swears he's forgotten the sensation.   
  
He wishes telling the truth were as easy as Sunstreaker makes it seem. But it's not. They broke a rule. They willingly ignored Cybertronian law, knowing that the consequences could very well get them all offlined. Even Knock Out. Yes, the Council would offline an illegally sparked mech.   
  
Small wonder that Megatron had managed to gather such a following in his Decepticons considering the Council.   
  
At the time, though, it seemed their only option. Their third application to the Allspark had just been rejected, and Ratchet had refused to try again. It would only result in another denial. The Council would never see beyond the fact that Sunstreaker was a gladiator and a spark-twin, which in itself was considered an aberration by the mechs in their fragged high towers. Nor would one of their members forgive the insult Ratchet had given decades before hand.   
  
As a medic, Ratchet had known of the theory behind spark merging to produce a viable spark. Eons ago, it had been a secondary method of reproduction for the Cybertronians. At some point, merging had been banned, the outcome too unpredictable and dangerous for the mechs (or femmes as the case may be) involved. Too often merging had resulted in glitched sparks or offlined genitors.   
  
From a certain point on, all protoforms taken before the Allspark lacked the necessary wiring to perform a successful merge. Only older Cybertronians still had that wiring, and even then, they had special dampeners built into their frames to prevent accidental merges. As a medic, Ratchet knew how to deactivate his dampeners.   
  
Sunstreaker was just young enough that he'd never had that wiring system built into his protoform. This left Ratchet as the only one who could possibly carry their youngling. He didn't consider it a sacrifice at all. This was something they both wanted. He was happy to be able to do this for himself and his partner.   
  
And if had been possible to do the same for Sideswipe and First Aid, Ratchet would have done so, as both of them were also of an age to be without the necessary systems. But that wasn't the way things worked. At least they had a better chance of getting approval from the Allspark Assembly.   
  
For Ratchet and Sunstreaker, however, this had been their only option.   
  
The first time he and Sunstreaker merged was meant to be practice. Records indicated that spark mergings never took on the first try. Never. Ratchet honestly didn't expect anything to come of it.   
  
As luck would have it, however, they managed to create a new spark on the first try, when they weren't even prepared for it. There had been the option to let it go, let the extra spark energy reabsorb back into his own spark. But Ratchet had been unwilling to consider such a thing, Sunstreaker even more so. For the next fourteen day, they merged every evening, strengthening the young spark, while Ratchet scrambled to find a protoform for their progeny.   
  
In the end, they had to enlist the help of Jazz, whom Sideswipe knew from some of his more shadier dealings.   
  
Ratchet can still remember the odd and yet emboldening sensation of an immature spark pulsing next to his, spinning happily, as though eager to take residence within a protoform. The tiny spark – whom he'd affectionately called sparklet until Knock Out was actually kindled into a protoform – had been curious, excitable, and often, Ratchet could feel the emotions of their sparklet. In a rare show of calm, Sunstreaker would croon to the sparklet, and Sideswipe was never seen without a smile on his faceplates.   
  
And yet, the fact had always remained that they couldn't tell anyone the truth. That they would have to keep Knock Out hidden lest someone question his existence.   
  
Ratchet truly cannot be angry with Sunstreaker. It's not his partner's fault that they've had to lie, at least no entirely. It is a decision that they made together, a lie they chose to propagate. He also can't blame Sunstreaker for not understanding.   
  
Sometimes, he and his partner are too alike. Sunstreaker too violent and vain; Ratchet too arrogant and stubborn. It's a small wonder they've partnered this long.   
  
It's no wonder they've yet to bond.   
  
Ratchet forces air through his vents loudly, the noise echoing in the medbay. Sometimes, he swears that if he concentrates, he can still feel the flutter of the sparklet within him. It's easy enough to call up the memory files, and ghost sensations aren't implausible. Perhaps he's been around the humans too long, adopting their illogical thinking.   
  
Frustrated, Ratchet returns his attention to the broken regulator. They can't accomplish much of anything until it's fixed. Can't hope to find Optimus and get their Prime back. Can't hope to figure out what Megatron might be planning. There's a whole planet at stake out there; Ratchet can't keep getting distracted by his personal issues.   
  
_“You're acting like you don't give a frag about our youngling!”_  
  
A necessary valve snaps off under Ratchet's fingers, falling to the floor. A growl of irritation escapes him and his arm lashes out, sweeping the broken piece of useless machinery to the ground, where it proceeds to break into even more useless bits.   
  
“Fraggit,” Ratchet mutters and plants his hands on the desktop, hunching his shoulders as he shutters his optics. Focus escapes him, as does what little measure of calm he manages to carry.   
  
His spark is twisting with too many conflicting emotions. Tension and anger and hurt. Relief contrasting with Sunstreaker's words. Shame with himself for not jumping at the chance to be reunited with his youngling. Fear over what Knock Out has become. Worry that he isn't capable of helping Knock Out.   
  
At this rate, Ratchet's going to be caught in an endless loop of negativity.   
  
“Didn't you need that?”   
  
At some point, Ratchet will need to check his sensors. Jazz sneaking up on him and Sunstreaker is one thing. Sideswipe being capable of doing it is an entirely different matter.   
  
“Not right now, Sideswipe.”   
  
“So you say.” The red twin steps further into the medbay, hands casually behind him, but Ratchet knows his partner's twin too well to not be wary. “Why is it you always forget that I get to ride on whatever's got the Dandelion all afluff?”   
  
Well, he certainly picked up on human references quickly. All the better to irritate his brother most likely.   
  
“I haven't forgotten.” Ratchet turns away from Sideswipe, stooping to pick up broken pieces of the regulator from the floor.   
  
“Then mind telling me why Sunny is sulking and yet managing to radiate a strut-shuddering mix of fury and guilt while you're in here destroying important equipment?” Sideswipe asks as though he hasn't noticed Ratchet's less than friendly tone.   
  
Ratchet drops the scattered bits on to the desktop. “Not particularly. No.”   
  
Metal clatters and scrapes together noisily as Sideswipe hops onto a counter top and makes himself at home, legs swinging. “Tough. Cause you need to talk and I have audials to listen.”   
  
He huffs, picking up his tools. “I am in no mood for chatter.” Or for fixing this slagged piece of equipment, but his hands need something to do or his processor will continue its fixation on an endless loop of old memories.   
  
“I know about Knock Out.”   
  
“Then you've read my report. Congratulations. You've finally learned how to follow orders.”   
  
Sideswipe doesn't have the decency to get annoyed with Ratchet's surly retort. “I also know why you said what you did.”   
  
The tool slaps down onto the desktop next to the battered piece of never-going-to-be-fixed equipment. “Then we don't need to talk about it, do we?” Ratchet demands, swiveling around to glare at the brother of his partner.   
  
Sideswipe shakes his head. “Mech, when they say partners act alike, they aren't kidding. Stubborn much?” If Sideswipe were human, he'd be arching a brow at Ratchet right now.   
  
Ratchet turns completely, ignoring the regulator and leaning against the desk. He folds his arms across his chestplate. “What do you want me to say, Sideswipe?” he asks, words pouring out of him before he can convince himself to keep his silence. It's obvious Sideswipe's not going to leave no matter what abuse Ratchet heaps on him. Damn glitched twins and their mulishness. “How much I loathe myself for being unable to speak the truth? To have the courage to claim my youngling openly?”   
  
“You're not a coward, Ratch,” Sideswipe says, something firm and unyielding in his tone. The years have really matured him. “No matter what you think of yourself.”   
  
Ratchet snorts, letting his wordless reply speak for itself.   
  
“But,” Sideswipe continues, “I also think Sunny's right. No more lies. It's the only way we can help Knock Out.”   
  
Silence sweeps through the medbay. Ratchet's optics slide away as Sideswipe's words echo in his audials. He can feel Sideswipe's gaze on him, but for an interesting change from the past, Sideswipe is remarkably patient. He doesn't push for an immediate response. Instead, he lets his statement percolate.   
  
The only sound, for the longest time, is that of their systems humming, the machines clicking in their steady commands, and the ticking of a human-sized wall clock.   
  
Finally, Ratchet ex-vents noisily, which Sideswipe takes as an indication to continue.   
  
“I know you want to help him.”   
  
“Of course I do,” Ratchet replies, vocalizer staticky, his shoulders slumping out of sheer exasperation.   
  
Sideswipe's legs kick up and out. “Then you and Sunny will do whatever it takes. And Jazz and Blue and I will help. Maybe Perceptor, too.” His mouthplates tilt upward, in approximation of a smirk that brightens his cobalt optics. A different shade of blue than his brother's which has always intrigued Ratchet. “And with luck, we might even get Optimus back, too.”   
  
Ratchet shakes his head, unfolding his arms and giving Sideswipe a wry look. “When did you become a morale officer?”   
  
Sideswipe hops down from the table, rolling his shoulders and limbs as though wanting to stretch out his inner cabling. “I could prank you if you'd prefer.”   
  
“No thanks.” Ratchet pauses, glances at his broken equipment and then through the mirror at Bluestreak peacefully recharging. No need to continue delaying the inevitable. “What's that brother of yours doing now?”   
  
“If you'd just bond with him, you'd know.”   
  
Ratchet is not having this discussion again. He looks at Sideswipe, reminding the red twin of the reason he had reigned unchallenged in the free clinic and why he was one of the few medics to survive this ridiculous Autobot-Decepticon war. He may be older and his pistons a bit rusty and not nearly a good a fighter as the frontliner, but he's a medic and it's a universal constant to never frag off your medic. _Ever_.   
  
Sideswipe raises his hands defensively. “He's still with Jazz, though they left the washracks and went toward the personal quarters. Jazz is trying to calm him down.” He refrains from mentioning bonding again. A wise choice.   
  
“I'll talk to him.”   
  
“And I'll find somewhere else to recharge tonight,” Sideswipe says as Ratchet heads toward the doorway, to face his doom. “I've no interest in being unwilling witness to you two again. Once was enough, thank you very much.”   
  
Ratchet chuckles lightly. “Bumblebee has room in his quarters.” The door to the medbay slides open, revealing the empty and silent hallway.   
  
“Hmm,” Sideswipe says, tapping his mouthplate with a metallic echo “Don't know if Blaster would like that. He's kinda possessive.”   
  
The door closes behind Ratchet who ignores Sideswipe's commentary in favor of pinging Sunstreaker... who is ignoring him. Fantastic. Ratchet pings Jazz instead, certain that the third in command will answer.   
  
- _Yes, o' medic mine?_ -  
  
Ratchet snorts over the comm. - _You let Sunstreaker hear you talk like that?_ \-   
  
_-I don't have a death wish, Ratch. 'Sides, I just put the sulking dandelion to berth. I left him glarin' death at the door, waitin' for the Medic of Doom_ \- Jazz sounds far too amused for Ratchet's own sanity.   
  
- _I head to my own funeral_.-  
  
- _Aww, I wouldn't put it that way. This is jes somethin' the two of ya need to fix. And soon. Cause I can't have my medic and half of my twin frontliners fighting. It's bad for morale_.-  
  
Ratchet thinks that has more to do with the fact their leader has forgotten them and aligned himself with the Decepticons, even if only out of ignorance.   
  
- _By the way, how's Blue_?- Not even the perpetually cheery Jazz could hide the concern in his vocalizer.   
  
- _Recharging_ ,- Ratchet answers succinctly. - _It wasn't serious damage_.-   
  
Relief all but floods through the comm. - _Good. Then I know where I'm recharging tonight_.-  
  
- _Try not to break my berth. It's the only one I have in the medbay right now._ \-   
  
- _Ratch, mech, I make no promises_.-   
  
The transmission ends and Ratchet shakes his head, uncertain if he should call his reaction amusement. The arrival of Jazz's team is certainly going to change things. A part of him is looking forward to Agent Fowler's reaction once he hears of it tomorrow. It may be the only amusement they'll have.   
  
Ratchet approximates another sigh and turns down an adjoining hallway, the strip of plain concrete and flickering fluorescent lights a paltry replacement for the spires of shining Iacon where he'd once lived. Or his caretakers, for that matter, as Ratchet himself had resided in Uraya in a more modest apartment close to the small-time hospital where he volunteered his services.   
  
How he longs for the day when they can return to Cybertron, when his universe makes sense again, instead of this confusing mixture of friend and foe and enemy and lover and sparkling who fights for the opposition.   
  
Ratchet pauses outside the quarters assigned to the twins, knowing only Sunstreaker is inside. He pings his partner for entrance, and a part of him uncoils when it is not rejected. Instead, the door slides open, allowing Ratchet to step inside where only the running lights on the floor are lit. His sensors, however, let him know that Sunstreaker is on the berth. Sulking most likely.   
  
He debates for a long while all the things he could say. One of them needs to speak first, and Ratchet is certain it won't be Sunstreaker. They both have the propensity to be infuriatingly stubborn, but in this case, Ratchet doesn't want to spend their first Earth-evening in separate rooms and separate berths. This time, he will bend first.   
  
“You are right,” Ratchet says, and honestly, he can't remember the last time he admitted such a thing to another mech. “It's time for the truth.” He would not, however, reveal the cowardice driving his previous opinion.  
  
The berth makes a creaky noise, rusty metal scraping together. Sunstreaker's sitting up, and blue optics swivel toward Ratchet. “Is that the guilt talking?” he asks, tone guarded.   
  
“A little.” Ratchet dares get closer. “I want our youngling back. I was only concerned about the possibility that he may not want to return.”   
  
“Afraid?” Sunstreaker sounds like he's tasting the word, though he doesn't have anything resembling a tongue like the humans.   
  
Ratchet considers. Afraid? Yes, perhaps a little. Afraid for Knock Out. Afraid for what their friends and allies might think of them? Yes, that too.   
  
“We don't know anything,” Ratchet says. “And without information, the unexpected concerns me.”   
  
“Then it's better not to even try?” Sunstreaker snarls at him.   
  
His patience shatters, already strung on end from the events of the evening. “Pit, Sunstreaker! I've already said I was a coward! What do you want from me?”   
  
His voice rings in the barren room. But instead of reacting furiously, as Ratchet would expect, Sunstreaker merely tilts his helm and looks straight at Ratchet. “What have I ever wanted?”   
  
When had the conversation shifted to this? This which they haven't spoken about or argued over since so many centuries ago when the war forced them to separate. Ratchet doesn't want to bring up old arguments! They need to focus on the big picture here, but of course, things are rarely so simple.   
  
Ratchet rubs his hands down his face – yet another habit he's picked up from the humans. “Can we not do this now? Please? Can't we just... enjoy our reunion?”   
  
“So you can go back and ignore things?” Sunstreaker leans forwards, optics unwavering. And since when has he been the calm one? “I know you, Ratchet.”   
  
“Sometimes mechs change.” Case in point, the bot in front of him.   
  
“And sometimes they don't,” Sunstreaker's tone is as flat as a vocalizer can manage.   
  
Perhaps the millennia of separation has done more harm than can be mended. Perhaps Ratchet's fence-sitting has brought about this impasse. Perhaps he has only himself to blame.   
  
His shoulders sag downward with a hiss of pistons and a grinding of gears. “Very well,” Ratchet says, with all the dignity he can muster, which isn't much at the moment. “I'll recharge elsewhere.” The storeroom floor has plenty of space left right now. It's about the only place that does, unless Ratchet were to leave the base and recharge thousands of miles away where they left Jazz's ship concealed from the Decepticons.   
  
The medic turns away, spark sitting leaden in his chest.   
  
Sunstreaker makes a noise like static on the base's old television set – the closet thing a Cybertronian has to a sigh. “And they say I'm the dramatic one,” he mutters. “Get over here, Ratchet.”   
  
He half-turns. “Is that a good idea?”   
  
“Who knows?” The berth makes another rusty creak. “Maybe we'll figure it out in the morning.”   
  
Relief cascades through Ratchet. He heads toward his partner before Sunstreaker can change his mind, and watches as the yellow mech makes room on the narrow berth for both of their bulky frames. Their plating barely touches with a small tingle of electricity passing between them, energy fields buzzing at the contact, exchanging light pulses of data about their relative emotions.   
  
Uncertainty. Relief. Fear. Sorrow. Affection.   
  
For a long moment, there's nothing but silence in the room. Well, except for the hum and tick and pulse of their systems, Sunstreaker in particular unfamiliar to Ratchet, who once used to measure his partner's status by sound alone. But it's been too long and too many battles (and too many of Perceptor's repairs) for Ratchet to recognize Sunstreaker's systems anymore.   
  
It's almost like laying next to a stranger, which makes Ratchet's spark pulse darkly all over again, sitting like a dim, dead star in his chest.   
  
In the darkness of the room, Sunstreaker shifts beside him. The plating of his left arm bumps against Ratchet's hip. It might as well be an embrace for all that Ratchet's spark flutters with joy.   
  
He shutters his optics, feeling like spinning his cooling fans out of sheer relief.   
  
“Sunstreaker?”   
  
“What?”  
  
“Tomorrow...” Ratchet hesitates, wondering if there's a tactful way to say this, and then deciding he doesn't know the meaning of the word. “I should do the talking.”   
  
Sunstreaker makes a snorting noise. “Fine. But I reserve the right to pound anyone who looks at me funny.”

 

***


	4. Chapter 4

Morning dawns with all the cheeriness of the aftermath of the fall of Uraya. Weary, heartbroken bots trudge around the base, feeling lost without the leader that had been guiding them since the beginning of the war. The quarters are cramped, the energon in short supply, and they are all stuck far from home, on an organic planet that not only doesn't know of their existence, but the indigenous inhabitants would probably protest if they did know.   
  
There is little in that to be optimistic about. Tensions between he and Sunstreaker won't improve by the sunrise either, despite that cheery human song about the “sun coming up.” Which Ratchet never really understood since sun rise has always been pretty much a given on this planet, not so much on Cybertron.  
  
Ratchet wakes, still unused to someone sharing a berth with him after so many millennia. (Sunstreaker, on the other hand, had grown accustomed to sharing with his twin, the two of them needing the contact if they weren't plating to plating with another mech.) He lays there for a full quarter-hour, listening to the sound of Sunstreaker's ventilations, trying to memorize all the new ticks in such an unfamiliar frame.   
  
Not that he doesn't like it. No, as a matter of fact, Ratchet is quite fond of the alt mode that Sunstreaker had chosen, and the way the golden-yellow gleam of the lamborghini's panels had translated into Sunstreaker's root mode. It's sleek and fast, but armored enough to take some damage – Sunstreaker would accept nothing less.   
  
Right now, Ratchet should be feeling nothing but joy. Another team has been found successfully with only minor injuries at best. There are more Autobots here to protect Earth; more brilliant minds to devise a plan to drive away the Decepticons and find a way back to Cybertron in order to begin healing and rebuilding. Ratchet has been reunited with his partner and several close friends.   
  
It seems like a series of miracles that deserve celebrating, except for all the realities that loom in the corner like a gaggle of Empties, starving for a sip of even the lowest grade Energon. Or worse, the Dark Energon infected Cybertronian zombies that now inhabit most of what remains of Cybertron. Ratchet shudders at the mere thought, his plating flaring out of unconscious self-defense.   
  
Their leader is gone, manipulated by the Decepticon leader. One of their own had been offlined by Starscream who is missing and presumed off-planet. And now, Ratchet and Sunstreaker are at odds over the worst bit of news the two of them could have ever received: their only youngling is in Decepticon claws, possibly by his own choice.   
  
No, there is nothing to celebrate here.   
  
The sound of systems clicking over from passive recharge to active awareness alerts Ratchet from his pessimistic musings. He turns his head, looking at his waking partner, who regards his surroundings with confused suspicion, before landing on Ratchet.   
  
“This isn't an endless memory loop, is it?” Sunstreaker asks, referring to the Cybertronian version of a dream.   
  
“No.” Ratchet rises from the berth, despite how much he'd prefer to linger, feeling ancient and creaky and rusty like Miko often accuses of him. “No matter how much we wish it otherwise.”   
  
He heads to the Energon dispenser in the corner, forming two cubes and waiting for it to sluggishly dispense their days rations. The supplies from Jazz's ship have managed to supplement their stores, but honestly it's not enough. They are going to have to scout Earth for another Energon stockpile just to support their added staff.   
  
He turns, handing Sunstreaker his cube and sips at his own, the lackluster non-flavor of the Energon invading his chemoreceptors. It's nothing like the wonderful blends he used to consume on Cybertron, but honestly, Ratchet can't remember the last time any of them ingested Energon for anything more than sustaining their systems. He can remember a time when Energon varied in shade from fuschia to aqua and everything in between. Now, it's nothing more than the same pale blue with the same tasteless, thin texture.   
  
Sunstreaker looks at his cube cautiously, before downing the whole thing in one go, clearly not one for savoring. He disperses the cube with a flick of his fingers, and then stares at Ratchet, only to tilt his head in a familiar manner. Pretty much the only way Ratchet has been able to tell that he is communicating with his twin.   
  
Ratchet heartily wishes that the tension in the air would hurry up and disperse. But it doesn't. It lingers like a bad case of rust. Ratchet doesn't know what to say so he sips his Energon and waits for one of them to break the uneasy silence.   
  
Unfortunately, it is neither Ratchet nor Sunstreaker that speaks first.   
  
\-- _Ratch_?--  
  
- _-I'll be on shift shortly, Jazz,_ \-- he responds, assuming that the silver mech is probably in need of some recharge himself. Or that he'd like Ratchet to check on Bluestreak.   
  
A chuckle comes across the comm. -- _That's good ta know, but not what I was gonna say. I'm calling a meeting. Now. Bring Sunny_.--  
  
Ratchet feels his frame seize up. -- _Is this for the reason I think it is?_ \--  
  
\-- _Got it in one, Ratch-man. I'll rouse everyone else. Get yer story together and meet us in the main room_.--  
  
- _-Yes sir._ \--  
  
\-- _Primus! Don't call meh that_.--  
  
Jazz cuts off the comm before Ratchet can reply. The light hint of humor in the third-in-command's tone isn't nearly enough to ease Ratchet's tension. But it's a start.   
  
He downs the rest of his cube, disperses it with a flick, and returns his attention to Sunstreaker. “Jazz seems to think now is the perfect time to follow through with our declaration.”   
  
“I know,” Sunstreaker replies, rising from the berth and rolling his neck, cables stretching and straining as he works out kinks in his lines. “Sideswipe told me.”   
  
It's like talking to a stranger for all the awkwardness between them. Can the passing millennia have changed them that much? Or was what they had so easy to break in the first place?   
  
Is this his fault for not bonding?   
  
He watches Sunstreaker stride past him, their energy fields brushing but barely, and head for the door, and wonders if this is what it's come to. Like their reunion the evening before had meant nothing, more a “farewell” than a “hello.”   
  
“Ratchet.”   
  
He turns, looking at his partner.   
  
“Am I doing this by myself?” Sunstreaker asks with a hint of his usual ill humor.   
  
Ratchet snaps out of his fugue, his one-bot pity party. Like the Pit he's going to stand here and watch things crumble around him.   
  
“Of course not,” he snaps with a huff, whirling on one creaky heel strut and stomping past the yellow mech. “He's my youngling, too.”   
  
“I was wondering when you'd remember that.”   
  
Before Ratchet can form a retort, the door slides open, dumping them into the hallway where Ratchet nearly trips over Sideswipe. The red twin either had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or he'd been sitting outside, eavesdropping. Though his link with his brother sort of made that unnecessary.   
  
“G'morning, fellow Autobots,” Sideswipe greets with a cheeky grin and a sloppy salute. “I see two someones survived the night.”   
  
Ratchet resists the urge to roll his optics. “Not in the mood, Sideswipe.”   
  
“You always say that,” the red twin quips, trotting alongside the medic as Sunstreaker follows behind. “I hope Sunny doesn't have to hear it half as much as I do-- ow!” The ringing noise of palm impacting helm echoes throughout the corridor. “Sunny!”   
  
“Don't call me that,” Sunstreaker says simply, optics glittering with irritation. A mild reaction on his part; Ratchet should commend him on his restraint. It's just another something he's learned in that mysterious length of separation that Ratchet knows nothing about.   
  
Sideswipe rubs his helm, though the small tap didn't even leave a dent. “I notice that you didn't deny the other half of my comment.”   
  
Both Ratchet and Sunstreaker, by mutual, unspoken agreement, choose to ignore Sideswipe, instead keeping a much needed silence as they stepped into the central command room, already clogged with equipment, long and heavy cords, computer screens, and the the human's leftover machinery. Now, space is at a premium with the addition of five more mechs to the Autobot ranks.  
  
Jazz stands by the main console, quietly conversing with Bluestreak who apparently let himself out of the medbay. Hmm. Ratchet would be having words with that mech later.   
  
Arcee leans against the wall near the Ground Bridge tunnel, nonchalant as you please, arms crossed and fingers tapping on her plating.   
  
Perceptor is standing near the display screens, peering at the information provided and no doubt consigning it to memory. Especially since one of the displays contains what Ratchet has worked out of the Synthetic Energon formula.   
  
Bulkhead is pacing of all things, back and forth across the floor in front of the stasis chamber. As Sideswipe takes up a place somewhere next to Arcee (who does roll her optics at him) and Ratchet and Sunstreaker find a clear spot somewhere between the wall and the Ground Bridge console, Ratchet realizes that only one mech remains missing.   
  
“Where's Bumblebee?”   
  
\-- _Here, Ratchet_ ,-- the small scout replies over the comm, accompanying the answer with an audible chirp and rev of his engine as he all but launches out of the third hallway, transforming mid-brake and flipping in the air, only to land solidly on his pedes.   
  
Sideswipe scoffs, performing a polite clap. “Show off.”   
  
Bumblebee's doorwings flicker upward. He raises a fist in playful challenge. Sideswipe waves him off with a grin and a flick of his fingers.   
  
“Later, little Bee. We got plenty of time for a rematch.”  
  
“Well,” Jazz drawls, capturing everyone's attention effortlessly without having to so much as dial up his vocalizer. “I'm guessin' everyone had a good recharge since yer in such high spirits and all. What say ya we get ta business?”  
  
Bulkhead pauses mid-pace, bouncing on the heels of his pedes and making a few things nearby rattle in their unsteady perches. “We gotta be quick though. Miko's expecting me to pick her up for school in half an hour.”   
  
Bumblebee chirps in agreement. Rafael will be waiting for him, too. No doubt Jack expects Arcee as well, though the motorcycle doesn't say it.   
  
“Humans.” Sunstreaker makes a sound of disgust, a noise of gears grinding that Ratchet sympathizes with. For a long time, he didn't have much interest in the humans either. To be fair, he still doesn't care for the general population. “Must they come here?”   
  
“It was Optimus' orders,” Ratchet replies, reminding them all. Optimus may be absent at the moment, but Ratchet refuses to abandon anything that their leader would have approved. “They still stand.”   
  
Bluestreak raises a hand, doorwings lifted perkily. “I'm not sure I understand what happened. I mean, I read the report. I'm pretty sure we all did but some of the details are a bit hazy. And unclear. And you said that Optimus forgot everything but I didn't know we could do that, short of a virus maybe. Or processor damage? So is that even possible?”  
  
“Yes. It's not like we're organic or something,” Sideswipe agrees, rocking back and forth on his heels with a grate of metal on metal.   
  
Ratchet ventilates noisily. “The Matrix stores the memories of a Prime. In theory, if a Prime were to surrender the Matrix, he would surrender all of his experience as a Prime as well.”   
  
Jazz hitches himself on top of a console, legs swinging. “In theory?”   
  
“It's not as though this has happened before,” Perceptor replies, finally turning away from the screen he's been perusing. “There's no record of a Prime passing on the Matrix and existing beyond it. They have always offlined immediately.”   
  
“What about Sentinel Prime?”   
  
Ratchet's armor flares at the reminder of one of their most prominent Primes and he has to consciously smooth it back down. “He wasn't a True Prime.”   
  
“Now I'm more confused.” Bluestreak's door wings droop noticeably and he taps at his chin. “What do you mean by True Prime? I didn't know there was a difference.”   
  
Ratchet looks at Perceptor, feeling an unexpected weariness tugging at his struts. “Perceptor, would you like to answer this one?”   
  
“Certainly.” The scientist all but beams as he slides into his famous teaching stance, shoulders straight, limbs locked, hands clasped behind him. “Sentinel wasn't accepted by the Matrix. He was Prime in name only. It was something the High Council decided because Nova Prime offlined so suddenly without a named successor.”   
  
“Sentinel was only supposed to be Prime for as long as it took for them to find a worthy candidate, someone whom the Matrix would accept,” Ratchet adds, though he wondered how many of the young mechs in this room would truly understand the politics of Cybertronian government. “Temporary, however, lasted so long it became an institution.”   
  
Silence fills the main room, save for the soft beeping of the Ground Bridge console and Ratchet's cobbled together computer systems.   
  
“I think I speak fer everyone when I ask... can we fix Optimus?” Jazz asks, folding his arms over his chest.   
  
Ratchet and Perceptor exchange glances, one that speaks without having to exchange words. This is not one problem; this is several.   
  
“I do not know if that's possible,” Ratchet hedges, feeling like a traitor for even admitting so. Feeling like a failure of a medic for being unable to help in this case.   
  
Bluestreak leans forward. “We're not just going to give up, are we?” he asks, sounding aghast. “I mean, sure he won't have the Matrix anymore, but he'll be our Prime anyway. He just needs to get his memories back! So didn't he have backups? I mean, I have backups and you'd think as a Prime he'd know to have backups.”   
  
A backup? Primus! Ratchet hasn't even considered that fact up until now. Of course Prime must have backups somewhere. Ratchet can't think of a single Cybertronian that doesn't keep a secondary copy of their memory files in some secure location. The question, however, is where would Prime have hidden his, and how recent is the data?   
  
Arcee palms her face, shaking her head. “We've been so busy trying to figure out what to do about the missing Matrix, none of us considered the possibility of a backup memory core. Stupid!”   
  
“Where would he keep them?” Perceptor asks.   
  
“I don't know.” Frustration pours through Ratchet.   
  
“You're our medic!” Arcee says, hands waving through the air. “Shouldn't you know these things?”   
  
Ratchet whirls toward the femme. “I don't know where you keep yours either, Arcee. Or Bumblebee's or Bulkhead's. That information is generally reserved for bonds or partners, remember?”   
  
“Prime doesn't have a bonded,” Sideswipe muses aloud.   
  
Ratchet hides his wince. That's not entirely... accurate. But any memory cores that Megatron knows of are outdated, from a time when Optimus had been Orion alone. That and Megatron is not likely to help them return Prime's memories. In fact, those backups are more in danger of being destroyed by Megatron.   
  
“Would he have hidden them here? On Earth?” Bulkhead asks.   
  
Sideswipe snorts. “Are yours here?”   
  
None of them need to hear the answer to Sideswipe's question to guess it. They've not been on Earth long enough to feel confident in leaving such important data somewhere. Ratchet's own backups are offplanet, back on Cybertron for the most part. And only the twins know where to find them. And First Aid.   
  
“There may be one on the Ark,” Ratchet muses aloud. He'd left a secondary backup of his own on the Ark, though it is minimal compared to the complete cores he'd hidden on Cybertron.   
  
“Which is... where exactly?” Perceptor asks.   
  
Arcee pushes off the wall, heading toward the main computer console. “Hidden. On the moon.” She deftly hits a few buttons, bringing up a schematic of the Ark on the main screen. “It didn't seem prudent to leave it here on Earth where the humans might discover it. And now that we know about MECH, it's an even better idea to leave it where it is. Besides, it's not exactly... functional.”   
  
A kind way of putting that the Ark is pretty much scrap. They'd had a rough landing after a particularly devastating battle with the Decepticons.   
  
“MECH?” Sideswipe repeats.   
  
Jazz waves him off. “Later. They're an issue, but not the main one. We need ta focus on gettin' Prime back first.” He turns toward Ratchet. “Do ya think ya can find it back on the Ark?”   
  
“Maybe.” Ratchet doesn't like being so unsure, but he can't be certain of anything, not anymore. Also, how in the world would they get to the Ark? Did he dare trust his cobbled-together Ground Bridge system to get them that far? “My largest concern is that a backup memory core might not be enough.”   
  
Perceptor taps his chin thoughtfully. “Mmm. You have a point, Ratchet. We know so little of how the Matrix operates and what affect it has on it's host. We know so little about Primes. It may be that we risk obtaining a memory core for no purpose.”   
  
“What do you suggest then?” Arcee asks.   
  
“It may be that we will need to access the data in the Archives to be better prepared for this particular situation,” Perceptor replies.   
  
“The Archives?” Bulkhead repeats, drawing to a stop as he stares at them. “As in the Archives that are on Cybertron? Dark Energon Zombie infested Cybertron?”   
  
Ratchet folds his arms over his chest. “The very same.”   
  
\-- _But the Space Bridge was destroyed_ ,-- Bumblebee broadcasts on a general line, statement accompanied by an audible click.   
  
“It is not impossible to construct another.” Perceptor's optics brighten, as though he's already running the calculations with the schematics. “It would, however, have to be a last resort as a newly built Space Bridge would be an immediate target for the Decepticons.”   
  
“Not to mention the zombies,” Bulkhead mutters, though not so quiet that everyone didn't hear him.   
  
“So fer right now, we'll focus on the memory cores,” Jazz says, hopping down from his perch as he begins a slow circuit around the gathered Cybertronians. “And trying to get a pair of optics and audials on the Nemesis.”   
  
“With Soundwave lurking in the shadows?” Arcee asks with a demonstrative huff. “That's not going to be easy.”   
  
Jazz pauses in his circuit, close enough to Ratchet that the edges of their energy fields brush, and the third in command tilts his visor toward Ratchet. A warning. A reminder.   
  
“It's gotta be done,” Jazz says. “Because I'm not leavin' two of our own in Decepticon claws any longer than it takes.”   
  
Another tension filled silence sweeps through the room, though approximately half of them are aware of what Jazz means.   
  
Ratchet's spark stutters and he finds himself taking another step closer to Sunstreaker, as though needing his partner's proximity to console him.   
  
This is it. No turning back now. They are committed to telling the truth, committed to this. Committed to getting their youngling back even if it means facing the possible revile of their friends and allies.   
  
“Two?” Arcee repeats. “I don't understand. No one else is missing. Cliffjumper... there's no way he's survived. Not after what Megatron has done to him.”   
  
“I wasn't referring to Cliffjumper,” Jazz replies, a pang of loss echoing behind his words. “But rather someone else.   
  
“Who?” Perceptor asks, sounding equally puzzled.   
  
Jazz turns his head, visor focusing on Ratchet and Sunstreaker. “If ya'd prefer, I can break the news.”   
  
A half-dozen pairs of optics swivel their direction, and Ratchet can all but feel the confusion and curiosity radiating through the air. Especially from the other three members of the original team, who have heard nothing of this up until now.   
  
Ratchet sighs again, plating clamping close to his frame protectively. His battle routines try to stir into priority, interpreting his rising tension as that before a battle, and Ratchet has to tamp them down. He can feel Sunstreaker's anxiety as well, though one wouldn't be able to tell by looking at the yellow mech, whose expression is the perfect depiction of blank and neutral.   
  
“No,” Ratchet says, and feels absurdly grateful when he finds himself bracketed by a pair of frontliner twins, Sunstreaker's arm brushing his. “This is my – our – story to tell.”   
  
“Ratchet,” Perceptor says, appearing to hesitate before he steps forward, more or less in front of Bluestreak. “What is this about?”   
  
Is there a way to ease them into the truth? To put it delicately? Where should he even start? At the beginning?   
  
There's no easy way to do this. Better to deal with it like like an attached scraplet – as soon as possible lest it eat its way through you.   
  
“My youngling,” Ratchet replies, his vocalizer low but his declaration nonetheless carrying through the room. Sunstreaker grips his shoulder, as though to remind Ratchet of his part in the matter, and Ratchet amends, “Mine and Sunstreaker's.”

 

***


	5. Chapter 5

“Wait a minute.” Arcee's hand slices through the air and she stalks forward, each step a ring of metal over metal. “Your youngling?”  
  
“You're bonded?” Bulkhead asks.   
  
“Who is it?” Arcee demands.   
  
Bumblebee adds his own two tones to the racket.   
  
“Since when have you been bonded?” Bulkhead asks, scratching at his helm with one blunt finger, as though unable to process the two unbelievable revelations.   
  
“We're not bonded,” Sunstreaker retorts stiffly, and his hand withdraws from Ratchet's shoulder; the dismissal in that motion panging Ratchet's spark like nothing else.   
  
This is yet something else that will need to be addressed. Not right now, for it is a conversation Ratchet does not wish to have in public.   
  
“Ratchet, who is your youngling?” Perceptor asks softly, his question lacking the outrage of the others and managing to stir Ratchet into actually answering.   
  
Ratchet shifts, trying not to appear defensive. “He's a member of the Decepticons. You all would know him as Knock Out.”   
  
Shock spreads through the room as though it had tangibility. Arcee stumbles backward a step, outwardly surprised. Bulkhead's jaw literally drops with a metallic clang. Bumblebee's optics spiral wider, clearly not expecting this turn of events. Bluestreak inclines his helm, perfectly aware of this information thanks to his bond with Jazz.   
  
Of them all, only Perceptor has the mildest reaction. He peers at Ratchet, making a thoughtful noise. “I don't understand. How is it that you have a youngling? I don't have memory of this in my databanks.”   
  
There is no turning back. This is the moment of truth.   
  
“Knock Out has... nontraditional origins,” Ratchet admits, and if he were human, he would claim he answers with bated breath. “We were forced to hide him since we weren't approved to petition the Allspark for a sparkling of our own.”  
  
Another moment of silence where his fellow Autobots appear to digest the information. Ratchet waits, watching each of their expressions. He notes the very moment that contemplation turns to suspicion, turns to realization and then, more shock.   
  
“You mean... Knock Out's a _merger_?” Arcee asks, her tones shattering the quiet.   
  
Ratchet winces as the figurative temperature in the room drops by about twenty degrees and behind him, Sunstreaker snarls.   
  
Ratchet whirls, snatching Sunstreaker's right arm before his partner can so much as lunge forward. Sideswipe, no doubt keyed in to his twin's immediate snap into fury, clamps onto Sunstreaker's left arm, dragging him back a good step.   
  
“No!” Ratchet shouts, wishing that he could speak with more than his vocalizer right now. “They don't know any better.”   
  
Sunstreaker growls and Ratchet feels the tremors in his plating, the way his energy field flares with outrage and fury. “That's no excuse!”  
  
Arcee, wisely, takes a step back. Not out of cowardice, but intelligent self-preservation. She may be confident, but even she knows that it's not wise to take on Sunstreaker by herself. Only Prime has ever done so successfully. And Prowl on several very memorable occasions.   
  
“Sunstreaker! Stand down!” Jazz snaps with a tone that is not to be argued with, all trace of humor and good nature gone.   
  
Sunstreaker jerks out of Ratchet's and Sideswipe's hold, but he doesn't lunge at Arcee. Instead, he glares at her; if his optics had lasers in them, she'd be nothing but blackened metal. “Call my youngling a merger again and they won't be able to stop me,” he hisses and raises his optics to everyone else, warning them without words.   
  
Ratchet's hand slides down his face, feeling the anger radiating off his partner. “To answer your question, Arcee, yes. Knock Out was fostered, not True Sparked.”   
  
“Primus! How did you manage to conceal such a truth?” Perceptor asks, sounding torn between his scientific curiosity and his personal beliefs about Cybertronian law.   
  
“We had help,” Ratchet answers, and shakes his head, trying to sound both professional and composed, though he feels neither at the moment. His allies – _his friends_ – are staring at him as though he were this unusual creature they've never seen before. He feels like an alien under the microscope, or a Decepticon spy awaiting Prowl's tender mercies.   
  
He feels a bit like he's surrounded by the enemy, despite knowing (assuming) that they would none of them hurt him. Isolate, perhaps, but not harm. But then, for a Cybertronian, such isolation may be worse than the physical pain.   
  
“But that's not the point,” Ratchet continues, struggling to be in control of the situation. “What matters is that Megatron has my youngling and I don't intend to let that pass. However, I cannot do it alone.”   
  
“And you want us to help? How do you even know he doesn't _want_ to be a 'Con?” Arcee asks, and doesn't back down at the warning growl Sunstreaker makes.   
  
Ratchet can hardly fault her. All evidence seems to suggest Knock Out willingly joined the Decepticons. Yet, that doesn't preclude processor-wiping or reprogramming either. Ratchet can't turn back without knowing for certain... even if means admitting an even more painful truth.   
  
His fingers clench and unclench with a quiet creak of gears. “We don't,” Ratchet answers honestly.   
  
His words seem to echo in the main chamber regardless. He and Sunstreaker, and even Sideswipe for everyone knows that he must have been aware all along, are the focus of their stares.   
  
Until Bulkhead's voice breaks the uneasy contemplation. “Scrap! I'm going to be late,” he mutters, and turns with a creak of joints in need of a good oiling. They've all gotten behind on their basic maintenance as of late. He pauses, looking over his shoulder at his medic. “Uhhh... can we talk about this later, Ratchet?”   
  
Only Bulkhead sounds a lot like he'd prefer they never spoke of this again. Better yet, he'd like to forget the whole day ever happened so long as they point him in the right direction – at the Decepticons.   
  
Ratchet doesn't blame him. The last few weeks have been stressing, even more so than their usual state of constant military readiness.   
  
(Sometimes, Ratchet even wonders if any of them know how to function outside of war. If it will ever be over and when it does end, if any of them will be able to know what to do with themselves. Will they even be able to function in a relative peace after fighting for centuries and knowing only death?)  
  
Jazz flicks his hands at Bulkhead, including both a bouncing Bumblebee and a sullen Arcee in the gesture. “Go on. Get th' humans. We're done fer now.”   
  
He doesn't have to tell them twice. All three bots shift into alt-mode and peel out of the base so quickly Ratchet is surprised that they haven't left skid marks behind. They don't even care to bother with the speed of using a Ground Bridge instead.   
  
In their absence, Jazz lets some of his leader-vibe slip out of him and his shoulders slump as he taps fingers over his mouthplates.   
  
“Correct me if I'm wrong,” Perceptor inserts, lifting one hand and drawing attention to himself. “But you did not seem very surprised by any of this, Jazz. In fact, you are not behaving as though you only learned of this today.”   
  
The tapping ceases.   
  
“It was our secret to tell, Perceptor,” Ratchet answers quickly, unwilling to sow any discord with their current leader. The Autobots need to trust Jazz. If they lose their respect or trust for Ratchet, well, it's only part of what he deserves for lying to them for so long. “Don't blame Jazz.”   
  
“Well, I for one think that went incredibly well,” Sideswipe drawls, folding his arms over his chest.   
  
“It could have been worse,” Ratchet agrees, and moves past all of them, heading toward the main console and tapping a few keys. “Much worse.”   
  
Ratchet brings up Arcee's, Bulkhead's, and Bumblebee's specifications and transmission channels, their faces and coordinates appearing on screen as scrolling, real-time data. The Decepticons have been quiet since the battle against Unicron.   
  
Too quiet.   
  
Ratchet is unwilling to take any chances, preferring to keep an optic on all three of them as he usually does. He will also need to update his medbanks with the data on the new arrivals, though Perceptor probably has them keyed into his scanners as well.   
  
“Did Prime know?”  
  
“No, he did not,” Ratchet answers, barely concealing his wince. This is still very much a sore spot for him. “I didn't want him to feel torn between his duties and his friendship.” That and the fewer who knew of Knock Out the better as it lessened the chance of his origins being revealed and their youngling being hauled away for imprisonment or worse, deactivation.   
  
Bluestreak shifts, doorwings twitching at the tension in the air, all too tangible to the delicate sensors. “What now?”   
  
Jazz drops his hand, whirling so that all of the remaining mechs are in sight. “Our goals have a common location. We'll start there.”   
  
Sunstreaker chooses that moment to push past all of them, stride an audible thump on the metal-concrete flooring. “I'm going on patrol.”   
  
Ratchet turns. “Sunstreaker--”  
  
“No.” A single syllable answer, given in Cybertronian, with all the finality the distinct glyph can offer. No elaboration, just a simple negative.   
  
Ratchet shifts his gaze to Jazz, expecting their commanding officer to do... something, but Jazz merely holds up his palms in a gesture of mute surrender. He's even faster at picking up human mannerisms than Bumblebee!  
  
“Sometimes,” Jazz says as Sunstreaker storms out and the sound of his tires squealing over concrete echoes in the room. “A mech just needs his space.”   
  
“Not that mech,” Ratchet growls.   
  
Bluestreak, however, is already sliding past both his bonded and Ratchet, heading for the tunnel. “I'll go with him. Just in case. He never minds when I come along. I can be quiet. When I want to be. Or when he wants me to be. Or when I need to be. Or both.”   
  
“Thanks, love.”   
  
Bluestreak nods, drops into his alt-mode, and speeds out of the base, less than a minute behind Sunstreaker. And unless the yellow twin is breaking all traffic laws, Bluestreak should catch up soon enough. Ratchet can allow himself a sense of relief.   
  
Sunstreaker is perfectly capable of taking care of himself, yes, but Decepticons are tricky and not only that, MECH is still out there. And they've already proven themselves capable of incapacitating a Cybertronian and doing whatever it takes to acquire one.   
  
“Perceptor, can you take over the monitor for a klik?” Jazz asks in the ensuing silence, shifting his frame toward one of the main hallways. “Ratchet? A word?”   
  
This can't be good. Ratchet inclines his head. “Yes sir.”   
  
Jazz groans, mouthplates curling with a hint of humor. “Primus, I'm gonna really hate that by the time Prime gets back,” he mutters, barely making a sound as he strides toward the side corridor and Ratchet moves to follow, clunking and creaking like nothing more than the rusty old mech he is.   
  
Of course, Ratchet cannot possibly compare his abilities to someone like Jazz who is trained and proficient in both Metallikato and Circuit-su whereas all the battle training Ratchet carries has been pounded into his processors by both Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. Which means his abilities are a collection of medical intuition, street fighting, and gladiator brawling.   
  
So if Jazz can creep around without making hardly a sound (and on one occasion, creeping up on Ratchet despite his proximity sensors being set to their highest level), all the better. Ratchet is a medic after all.  
  
“You will get used to it,” Ratchet replies as they step into the hall, the emptiness of the walls causing Ratchet's footsteps to echo eerily. Fluorescent lighting flickers, and one of the lights drones constantly.   
  
Jazz shakes his head, tilting his head to look up at Ratchet, though with his visor it's hard to tell where Jazz is really focusing. “I don't want ta get used ta it.”   
  
Behind them, another set of footsteps echo on the metal and concrete.   
  
Jazz pauses mid-stride, head cocked as though able to tell the mech by the sound of their stride alone. “I don't recall invitin' Sideswipe,” he says aloud.   
  
The footsteps cease and a light chuckle rises up behind them – Sideswipe. “Well, you didn't give me anything else to do either.”   
  
“The floors could use a good mopping,” Ratchet says.   
  
Sideswipe turns on his heel with a definitive stomp of his other foot, turning his back on them. “On the other hand, I think I hear Perceptor calling my name.” He dials up his vocalizer. “Be right there, Percy!”   
  
Sideswipe scurries out of sight and immediate hearing. Well, scrap. Ratchet doesn't think he's ever going to get those floors mopped.   
  
Jazz outright laughs, the first true sign of amusement since the earlier tension-filled atmosphere. He playfully punches Ratchet in the arm, metal ringing noisily. “Millennia later and you still know how to handle the twins.”   
  
“Sideswipe is easy,” Ratchet replies with a lopsided curl of his mouthplates that goes no further. It's hard to find the humor in anything right now. “Sunstreaker, however...”   
  
“Why didn't you bond with him?”   
  
The frank and sudden query startles Ratchet. He swings his gaze on Jazz, who looks casual as you please, like he hasn't just asked the most difficult question a mech could possibly find.   
  
“And the war had nothin' to do with it,” Jazz adds stubbornly. “So don't try that one on me, Ratch.”   
  
Ratchet vents loudly. He doesn't know how to respond to that. Oh, he knows the truth, the reasons, and the neverending cowardice. He knows all the lies he's told himself and the half-formed excuses he's given Sunstreaker. But he doesn't know how to answer that question, to explain himself to a mech he hasn't seen in millennia, much less to himself.   
  
Redirection becomes the name of the game.   
  
“Is this what you wanted to talk to me privately about?” Ratchet asks as the recessed doorway of his medbay comes into view.   
  
“No. Though it's still relevant. I'm sorta invested in you two.”   
  
“Invested?” Ratchet keys open the panel, reminding himself that he'll have to give Jazz his own codes for the Cybertronian enhanced lock. Primus only knows what kind of mischief Miko could find herself in if Ratchet hadn't made securing the medbay one of his first actions the moment Optimus decided to allow humans constant access to their base.   
  
Jazz steps in first at Ratchet's gesture and stands in the middle of the cramped, understocked room, looking around pointedly. “Yes, invested,” he says, and tosses a glance at Ratchet over his shoulder. “Nothing like Uraya, is it?”   
  
“Not hardly,” Ratchet retorts with a snort. This medbay is primitive even by the standards of the free clinic where Ratchet volunteered his services. Most of the tools here have been made by hand, forged of Earth's incompatible and crude metals.   
  
Jazz makes a contemplative noise, a buzz of static not unlike Earth's almost obsolete modem connections. He then chooses the nearest med-berth and hops up on it, this putting their optics at nearly the same level. Jazz has never had a complex about his height, but woe unto the mech that dare name him a minibot. (Despite evidence to the obvious that states he is one).   
  
“So as I was sayin,” Jazz starts, legs swinging jauntily as he pins Ratchet with a look felt even through the filter of his visor. “Since I helped ya get together, I feel a bit responsible. Also, proud.”   
  
Ratchet turns his back on the skilled infiltrator, poking at the machine he'd been half-heartedly working on last night. “I'm well aware that I have you to blame for a lifetime of processor aches.”   
  
“As well as decavorns of happiness, circuit-blowin' interfacin', and a mech who's the spittin' image of both of ya from what I hear.”   
  
Ratchet listlessly picks up a tool, spark lurching once again within him, as though he can't help the pain and sorrow that tints the memories. “Ask your question, Jazz.” What is worse? Answering the questions he can't? Or the constant reminders of what used to be and what he's probably lost?   
  
There's a pause before Ratchet feels the brush of another energy field against his, just a friendly flicker buzzing with apology, sincerity, and affection. Ratchet doesn't have the same level of familiarity with Jazz as he does Sunstreaker, but he had been good friends with the TIC even before the war broke out. This is not something he wants the passing millennia to have changed.   
  
He pulses back gruff resignation, and forgiveness, echoing it all with an aged fondness. He's not truly angry with Jazz after all. None of this is Jazz's fault and he doesn't deserve Ratchet's less than friendly attitude.   
  
“What happened?” Jazz asks, the inquisitive buzzing of his energy field drawing away, leaving Ratchet feeling a bit colder. Figuratively speaking. “Back in Uraya? How did you two get separated from Knock Out?” Three actually, as Sideswipe had been with them at the time.   
  
Ratchet shutters his optics. Trust Jazz to ask the difficult questions. “A series of failures for whom I have no one to blame but myself.”   
  
“Tell me.”   
  
“Is that an order?”   
  
Jazz's fingers tap a nonsense rhythm on the surface of his perch. “Don't make me make it one, Ratchet. You know I'm just as fond of the mechling as Sideswipe.”   
  
Ratchet sets the machine down once more, quite convinced it will never be fixed, and plants the flat of his hands (servos, by Primus he's become too accustomed to the humans) on the counter. His memory files are pulled to the front of his processors without his permission, as though Jazz's question has summoned them. He can remember it all so clearly, so vividly, as if it had happened yesterorn and not kilovorns ago.   
  
“That's the curse of being Cybertronian,” Ratchet says with a resigned slouch of his shoulder components. “Millennia pass, but the memories don't fade. Ever.”

 

***


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is one massive flashback. Also, the time units I used, a mishmash of all the continuities: breem (minute), orn (day), cycle (hour), vorn (year), diun (month), eon (millennia), klik (second).

Clang!

"I said be still," Ratchet growls, shoving his patient back onto the berth with both servos, the clang of helm impacting berth ringing throughout his clinic. "Or so help me Primus I'll bash you with your own arm!"

Said arm is lying off to the side, awaiting reattachment while Ratchet finishes cleaning and preparing the joint. Frayed wires and orns of grit and grime have made his work more difficult than it needs to be, not to mention his patient's squirming.

The mech, Hydrau, fixes a glare upon the medic, but obediently slumps into the berth. "Whatever ya say, doc. Just fix me."

"I am already in the process of doing so, scrapheap," Ratchet retorts, and pulls back, returning his attention to his tool tray. A few more stripped wires to replace, a hydraulic line to patch, and then he'll be able to attach the removed limb.

Hydrau watches every motion Ratchet makes as though expecting the medic to offline him when he's not looking. Ratchet can hardly blame him. Hydrau is used to being patched up by the half-taught, sadistic medics employed by the underground gladiator rings. But lucky for Hydrau, Ratchet is quite used to patching up twitchy gladiators who've managed to get themselves thoroughly fragged.

Reaching for a patch, Ratchet takes a moment to scan his clinic. Two other medics are on duty right now, but only Imager has a patient, an older mech complaining of something rattling in his vents. Axial's in the storage room, completing the onerous task of inventory, which considering their low stores, shouldn't be too difficult.

Altogether it's a quiet shift, which is a welcome change from the rising tensions of Cybertron's politics and the unhappy murmurings of the lower class. Ratchet is in the unique position of being first audial to many a grumble, from not only strangers, but his own partner as well. This... Megatronus is not wrong, per se, but Ratchet doesn't approve of the methods he suggests either.

Patients speak of war on the horizon, the whispers growing louder and louder with each passing orn. Ratchet closes his audials to them, focuses on each patient, as war has nothing to do with him. He's a genitor and a medic first. He'll never be a soldier.

Ratchet reaches for Hydrau's limb, lining it up to the proper socket and connecting the necessary wires. He tweaks a few lines, checks the alignment of the gears, and then oils up the joint. There. Done.

Satisfied, he accesses Hydrau's medical overrides and flips the switch, allowing sensation to return to the repaired limb, albeit at less sensitivity than would normally be given. The last thing Ratchet wants to do is fix the fragging arm again.

"Sit up. How's it feel?" Ratchet demands, not bothering with pleasantries. Mechs like Hydrau don't understand politeness. You told them what to do; you didn't ask.

Hydrau does as Ratchet says, sitting up and rolling his shoulder gingerly. "Stings."

"There're new lines in there. Your system has to integrate them is all. Feel your servo?"

Lipplates curling into an unattractive sneer that reveals the chiseled denta, Hydrau jerks his head. "Yeah."

"Good. Now get out of my clinic."

Hydrau revs his engine in challenge as he hops to the floor, towering over Ratchet by a good three helms. "My arm better not fall off, medic."

"I don't do shoddy work," Ratchet retorts, wiping off his servos with a nearby rag, shoulders straight. It'll take a lot more than that to intimidate him. "Get out of here."

With another fanged sneer, Hydrau stomps out of the clinic with all the grace his orns in the gladitorial circuit can give him. Shaking his helm, Ratchet sets to cleaning up his tools and wiping up splashes of chalky-pale energon. Luckily, he didn't choose to work in this clinic for gratitude.

Tossing Hydrau's stripped gear into a recycle bin – for later cleaning and refurbishing, they couldn't afford to abandon anything of possible use – Ratchet contemplates a break. Just long enough for a cube of low grade and a chance to rest his twinging struts.

Of course, Primus chooses to mock him for thinking such a thing by sending in two damaged mechs, carrying the bleeding body of a third, energon hitting the metal flooring in lurid splashes of dull blue. Ratchet honestly can't remember the last time he saw anything better than the lowest end midgrade.

Ratchet snaps to attention. "Axial! Get the frag out here!" he shouts, hurrying forward to take the bleeding mech just as one of his companion's leg gives out and he crumples to the floor, strut snapped off at the joint. Wonderful.

Ratchet _hates_ strut replacements.

Pedestomps announce Axial's arrival as he takes the bleeding mech's other arm and together, he and Ratchet drag him to a berth. Offline from loss of energon, he doesn't so much as groan or twitch.

"I've got this one," Ratchet says, edging Axial aside as he sets up an energon drip and starts hunting down torn lines. "See to the others. Grab Imager, too. Spire's vents can wait."

Axial nods and scurries away to attend to the others, summoning Imager at the same time. Ratchet bends his focus to fixing the mech in front of him, only tangentially aware of Axial helping the one with a shattered strut to a berth, while Imager inspects the third mech, who seems to have the least damage of them all – bent plating, a scratch in his chestplates, and a dent in his helm.

Ratchet clamps the two main spurting lines, and turns to the main problem: the mech's chestplate has been bashed inward, pressing against his spark chamber. That's what's keeping him in stasis. Cursing, Ratchet works to carefully unbend the panel, without jarring the spark chamber. He doesn't even have to ask how it happened. All three mechs have gladiator written all over them.

The majority of Ratchet's patients are low caste bots who can't afford genuine medical care, but he also gets a steady stream of beaten and broken mechs, who drag their afts to his clinic rather than risk the sadists at the rings. Granted, those medics are likely to choose permanent offlining over a mech they figure can't fight anymore. Less of a drag on resources.

Ratchet honestly doesn't call those sadists medics.

Anxious breems tick by as Ratchet carefully removes the dented chest plating, and a secondary layer of armor, enabling him to see the spark chamber behind. He vents relief. It's not been compromised. The mech will live. He is also still leaking energon from minor tears, which calls for a systematic hunt of every. Fragging. Tear. Pit-slagged gladiators!

"Ratchet!"

Someone yells his name, and for a moment, Ratchet thinks it's one of his fellow medics, that perhaps two of the less injured patients had a worse injury than he'd originally observed. But no, Sunstreaker comes storming into the clinic, plating ruffled and optics bright, a mech on a mission.

What the frag? He's supposed to be at their apartment!

"Sunstreaker!" Ratchet hisses and looks at his patient. Stable for now. He can grab a moment. "Imager, take over here. I'll be right back."

"No problem." The chartreuse mech slips into Ratchet's place, enabling him to ease away from his patient and focus on Sunstreaker, all but vibrating with restrained energy.

Ratchet storms across the room, dialing down his vocalizer as he confronts his partner. "What are you doing here? Where's Knock Out, you fragger?" Sunstreaker is supposed to be with their youngling today! That was the agreement!

Sunstreaker rears back, whatever had riled him taking a backplate to his new irritation. "How irresponsible do you think I am?" he demands, bristling. "He's with Hot Spot."

"That still doesn't explain why you're here," Ratchet retorts, and turns around, a quick sweep with his gaze informing him that he still had one patient that needed attending, a second with a shattered limb, and the original patient that had been his, severed energon lines needing patching and replacing.

A yellow-plated hand lands on Ratchet's shoulder, spinning him back around. "I came for you," Sunstreaker answers. "We have to go. Now."

"I can't leave," Ratchet says, irritable. "I have patients."

"Frag them!" Sunstreaker all but snarls, both servos planted on Ratchet's shoulders, fingers clamping down as though refusing to let go. "It's every mech for himself. Uraya's about to be nothing more than a _crater_."

Ratchet stills. "What are you talking about?" He doesn't like the look on Sunstreaker's faceplates, the anger and the growing edge of fear. Not for himself, of course not. There is very little, if anything, that Sunstreaker fears.

There is, however, a sense of growing danger. Something that climbs over Ratchet's helm, grasps onto his shoulders, and clings to his dorsal plating like a glitched turbofox.

"We heard about it at the ring," Sunstreaker says, vocalizer low and serious. "The Decepticons are making their move. Today. Sideswipe and First Aid are already in Praxus. We're going to meet them there."

Ratchet snorts. "If we're going to war, what makes you think Praxus is going to be any safer? Let me go, Sunstreaker."

Fingers dig in further, near-denting his armor. "Stubborn old- Slaggit! Uraya is _nothing_ to the Council. They're not going to protect us!"

"I'm not abandoning my patients!"

"I won't _let_ you abandon us!"

The sound of aerials streaking overhead pierces the tension of the clinic. Ratchet's mouth clamps shut, his gaze darting upward. Sunstreaker's does as well. In the distance, Ratchet hears a loud boom. Like an explosion.

"Pit!" Sunstreaker snarls and drops one servo, snatching Ratchet's and pulling him toward the door. "I'm not arguing with you, Ratchet. We're going. Now."

"Sunstreaker-"

Ratchet's world shatters. The front wall of his clinic explodes inward, pelting him and Sunstreaker with bits of metal and flaming debris. Sunstreaker tackles him, bodily covering Ratchet and shielding him from the worse of it. Somewhere, there is shouting and screaming, the noxious aroma of smoke and burning attacking Ratchet's chemoreceptors.

Everything around him shakes and shudders, metal crashes as it collapses, the world rattles on its foundations. Ratchet shutters his optics as shrapnel pelts through the walls with loud screams of sharp objects tearing through the air. Something pings on Sunstreaker's armor and he curses about his paintjob, but he doesn't stop shielding Ratchet, his energy field vibrating with worry and anger, matching the fear and fury in Ratchet's own.

He doesn't need Sunstreaker muttering in his audial to know what happened. The Decepticons have bombed Uraya. They are all going to offline here, trapped beneath layers of rubble.

More explosions rock the building. Outside is filled with the sound of Seekers cutting through the air seamlessly, their thrusters a steady rumble. The noxious smoke is getting thicker, obscuring Ratchet's vision, and he switches to a different spectrum, picking up a few heat signatures through the dim.

Something rumbles ominously. And then the ceiling falls down on top of them. Ratchet's world turns to static.

He doesn't know how long he spent knocked in a twilight state, somewhere between consciousness and temporary offlining. But the sound of Sunstreaker calling his name, the concerned brush of a familiar energy field, and the warnings streaking across his HUD thrust Ratchet from semi-consciousness to full vigilance. He lurches upward, and instantly curses as his right arm registers pain, from where it dangles loosely from the socket. Dislocated. Scrap.

"Come on, Ratch! I can't carry you!" Sunstreaker says, and he's tugging on Ratchet's other arm, trying to pull him to his pedes while Sunstreaker's other arm strains to hold up a piece of scorch-marked paneling.

Ratchet staggers to his pedes, the ground lurching beneath him as his gyros struggle to stabilize. He must have taken a blow to the helm... "... What?"

"No time. We have to go!" Sunstreaker shoves him toward an open space and Ratchet stumbles out from under the collapsed roofing.

As soon as he's free, Sunstreaker dives forward, dropping the roof, the ends of it narrowly clipping the backs of his pedes. He rolls to his pedes equally quickly and grabs Ratchet's uninjured arm, tugging him toward a nearby alley, though how he could see it in the thick smoke is anyone's guess.

Ratchet struggles to cling to coherency, his worldview a blur of colors and debris and grey smoke. He reboots his optics, but that doesn't seem to help. The sound of shouting and crackling flame ring in his audials. Memory returns slowly, like he can't seem to access the proper files.

"Wait! Axial and Imager..." He tries to dig in his heels, turn back, but Sunstreaker is less damaged and significantly stronger.

"Too late. They're dead." Sunstreaker's tone is flat. "And we'll be, too, if we don't get out of here."

In the shadow of the alley, Ratchet gets his first real glance at his partner. Yellow armor is dented and scratched, some so deep the paint has stripped away, leaving him in protoform silver. He's leaking energon, too and worse, there's a piece of scrapnel lodged in his dorsal plating, just to the left of his right shoulder joint.

"We need to stop," Ratchet says. "You're damaged."

"I'm functional," Sunstreaker corrects. "We don't stop until we're in Praxus."

Logical, but yet... a note of alarm rings through Ratchet's processor. "No, we have to go back to the apartment. Knock Out-"

"-is with Hot Spot, remember? They should already be in Praxus."

Relief courses through Ratchet, calming the frantic spin of his spark. "At least let me dial down your pain receptors."

Pausing at the end of the alley, Sunstreaker peers into a street crowded with debris, but empty of life signs. "Fine. But I'm fixing your shoulder first. Stand still," he retorts, turning back toward Ratchet with intent.

The medic backpedals a step. "I'm not really sure that's a good- slaggit, Sunstreaker!"

No warning, just a slam into the wall, a twisting jerk of his arm, and his shoulder is relocated in a fraction of a breem. The pain is sharp, but brief, and fades away to a dull, aching throb.

"And they tell me my berthside manner is atrocious," Ratchet mutters, testing the durability of the fix. It'll do.

Sunstreaker's grin is more predatory than amused. "That's why you're the medic and not me." He leans one servo against the wall just to Ratchet's right, as if concealing him from the alley entrance, and offers the other to Ratchet, panel sliding aside to reveal the medical port on the underside of his wrist joint. "My turn."

Ratchet unspools a data cable and links to his partner, medical override codes making it easy for him to tap into Sunstreaker's systems and dial down the sensors until the pain of the shrapnel wound is barely a nuisance. Once in Praxus, Ratchet will have to surgically remove the twisted metal. But until then, this will have to do.

Finished, Ratchet removes the cable and coils it back into its compartment. He takes Sunstreaker's servo and gently closes the panel. "All set," Ratchet says.

"Good." Sunstreaker's servo slips out of Ratchet's, but only to curl fingers around Ratchet's own as he leans down, touching Ratchet's chevron with his helm. "Okay?"

"Relatively speaking," Ratchet says, his energy field brushing Sunstreaker's and conveying a complicated mixture of affection and gratitude, along with lingering grief that he hadn't a moment to process yet.

His clinic. His home. His fellow medics. All of it. Gone.

Sunstreaker pulls Ratchet's servo toward his mouth, lipplates brushing over the sensitive fingertips. "We're going to make it."

"Of course we are," Ratchet says gruffly.

A sound, like pedes tripping on debris, crackling over twisted metal, floats to their audials. Ratchet freezes, Sunstreaker jerks, helm twisting toward the alley entrance. One servo dangles at his side, energon blade gliding noiselessly into view.

"Sun-"

"Shh." Sunstreaker takes a quiet step away from Ratchet, toward the alley, at the ready.

He peers into the street and from his position, Ratchet can't see anything around his partner. He could use his scanners, but they are detectable. It would give away their position. And right now, they are only two, with Sunstreaker having the only fighting experience.

A klik passes in anxious silence, and then Sunstreaker suddenly lunges out of the alley, sword raised high, bright from heated metal. A quick swipe and the blade cuts through a mech's chestplates as though it were a thin sheet of gaseous film rather than battle armor.

The mech drops, energon spurting from a main severed line, optics going dark. Sunstreaker's strike had cut true, straight through to his spark chamber.

Ratchet stares, horrified, as his partner whirls, easily dodging blaster fire from another mech and leaps into the air, crashing down on a third attacking mech and neatly bisecting helm from neck. Sunstreaker rolls on his right shoulder over the decapitated mech, bounces on his pedes, and spins to attack the last enemy, the one who'd fired the blaster.

The shot barely singes Sunstreaker's paneling before the yellow mech is on top of the enemy, going for a killing blow. energon spills from the sparking gouge in the mech's ventral plating, a purple symbol bright on his chestplate – Decepticon. The fighter topples backward, defeated.

Ratchet has never once seen Sunstreaker fighting in a gladiator's pit. He will go to as many art showings as Sunstreaker can book, will admire each and every artistic endeavor, but he draws the line at watching his partner tear apart another mech in brutal battle for the sake of credits. It is enough that he has to put Sunstreaker together again afterward.

Right now, however, he is getting a glimpse of the vicious skills that his partner has acquired over the vorns. He doesn't know whether to be awed or sickened at the violence, and settles for something in between.

Sunstreaker turns back toward him, shaking energon from his blade before retracting it. "Come on. There will be more of them," he says. He stoops next to the only Decepticon which has been thoroughly deactivated.

Ratchet steps out of the alley, pointedly not looking at the fallen mechs. "What was the point?" he asks, unable to conceal his disgust. "They've already bombed Uraya."

"Recruiting, most likely. It's how the Decepticons operate. Or, alternatively, getting rid of future opponents," Sunstreaker straightens and tosses something Ratchet's direction.

He catches it easily, only to nearly drop the item. It's a blaster, one carried separate from a mech's frame unlike Sunstreaker's blades, which are built into his frame.

"If you're half a good a shot with that as you are with a wrench, you'll be fine," Sunstreaker says, coming close and gesturing to the blaster. "That's the trigger. These things typically carry a hundred shots. Make them count because we can't stop to reload."

Ratchet shakes his helm, uncomfortable. "Sunstreaker, I can't-"

"You will." Sunstreaker's servo covers both the blaster and Ratchet's servo. "For all that Megatron is demanding freedom, he hasn't given us a choice in this. It's shoot or be offlined. There's no middle ground. There's no such thing as a neutral."

Reluctantly, Ratchet curls his fingers around the grip of the blaster. "Very well." All of his medic programming screams in sheer outrage, but there is nothing he can do. "I'll do what I must." Though every inch of him protests.

War is coming. No, war is _here_. And like it or not, Ratchet is now forced to acknowledge that fact. There's nothing he can do but hold the blaster and follow his partner as they creep through the ruins of Uraya, heading for the border so that they can flee to the relative safety of Praxus.

 

****


	7. Chapter 7

“When you arrived in Praxus, Knock Out wasn't there.”   
  
Ratchet's optics online as he disengages from the memory file, returning his focus to the present. “No, he wasn't. And neither could we find Hot Spot. First Aid was a sobbing wreck, however, which was our first clue that something had happened.”   
  
“He's gone?”   
  
“Most of First Aid's gestalt is now,” Ratchet says with a soft ventilation. He turns back toward Jazz, leaning against his counter and crossing his arms. “We never did figure out if Megatron was targeting the gestalt's intentionally or not. Of the Protectobots, only First Aid and Blades still live. Or at least, they did the last time I spoke with First Aid, which was kilovorns ago.”   
  
Jazz's tapping on the medberth begins anew. “Why didn't you tell me?”   
  
“You never asked,” Ratchet replies, gaze shifting away. “Cybertron had just declared war on itself. Mechs were dying left and right. Sentinel went missing. Dark Energon started infesting Decepticon troops... at the time, my missing youngling didn't seem like something I could bother the high command with. Everyone was missing someone.”   
  
Jazz's visor darkens. “Ratch...”   
  
His fingers tighten around his arm, metal creaking warningly. “Not that I ever stopped looking. Every klik I wasn't on the field or in the medbay, I was out there searching. Hunting the ruins of Uraya, chasing after ghosts. Sunstreaker didn't recharge even half as much as he was supposed to, and when Sideswipe wasn't taking care of Aid, he was out there looking with us. But Knock Out was gone.”   
  
“You two never acted like anythin' was wrong,” Jazz says softly, his energy field permeating the medbay with the buzzing drone of regret and apology. “I assumed you'd sent Knock Out to a neutral colony or somethin', some place he'd be safe.”   
  
Ratchet's bark of laughter is anything but amused. “How I wish that were the case. We'd searched them all. Every last one. Left contact information. No one had an answer. No one cared.” His spark spins wildly in his chest. “After a few kilovorns, even I started to believe he'd been permanently offlined.”   
  
He uncrosses his arms, one falling limply at his side, but the other remains hovering over his chestplate. One hand lingers by his spark, as though trying to cling to the ghostly sensation of his carrier's bond with Knock Out.   
  
“The bond between carrier and sparkling is such a fragile thing. It weakens with time and distance. It's all but erased when replaced by other bonds.” Ratchet's fingers curl into a fist, one that rests over his chestplates between the doors of his alt-mode. “Yet, there were times I still felt my youngling. I wanted to believe he was alive, despite all evidence to the contrary.”   
  
“You were right though. He is alive.”   
  
Ratchet's optics snap upward, meeting Jazz's visor. “He's with the Decepticons! That's hardly a comfort.”   
  
“Better than bein' dead,” Jazz counters, very matter of fact, and nearly sounding as logical as Prowl in that moment. Sometimes, Ratchet swears they are less brother-in-bond and more spark-twin the ways they are so similar.   
  
Scraping his palm down his face, Ratchet forced three ventilation cycles to regain his composure. “That depends on your point of view.”   
  
Jazz hops down from the berth with barely a tap of his pedes on the grated metal. He reaches up, one servo resting companionably on Ratchet's shoulder. “We're gonna get him back. Him and Prime.”   
  
“Of course we are.” He forces a smile onto his lipplates, and wouldn't be surprised if it comes out more of a grimace.   
  
Jazz, however, grins in return and pats Ratchet on the shoulder, tapping the Autobot symbol with one finger. “Good. Now you just tinker around in here. I'm gonna see if I can't get our errant daffodil to come back. And when I do, ya need ta talk.”   
  
“Yes sir.” A certain pleasure is derived from teasing Jazz, if only to chase away some of the pessimistic surges Ratchet's processor is giving him.   
  
Jazz's visor flashes at him. “Don't call meh that. Later Ratch.”  
  
The medbay door slides open, Jazz stepping out with nary a pedestep on the metal, which proves that he's only heard when he chooses to be. The door closes behind him with a quiet beep and Ratchet ventilates softly, weariness attacking him from every angle. Five hours of uneasy recharge don't come anywhere close to the amount of defragging he really needs to set his systems right.   
  
Though to be fair, Ratchet has forgotten what it means to be fully recharged, fully energized, and in complete repair. He can't remember the last time he had a repaint or even a touch up. Some of his paneling has been fixed so many times, the metal itself is weak and less armor and more paper-thin sheeting.   
  
Sometimes, he swears he forgets what real energon is supposed to taste like.   
  
And some of his team – his allies, friends, family – are in an even worse state. Ratchet does the best he can with the supplies he has available, but it's not enough. It's never enough.   
  
Ratchet hadn't been exaggerating earlier either. The curse of having a computer to carry memories means perfect recollection. Means he can stand here and remember something that happened millennia ago as though it had happened last solar cycle. Means Ratchet can shutter his optics without trying, slump down onto a berth, and finally accept the images his memory core has been pinging at him since Jazz first brought up the painful topic.   
  
It means he has very little choice in the matter.   
  
_Uraya had been ruined. Crumpled buildings, the offline shells of broken mechs and femmes, Cybertronians Ratchet could do nothing for. Uraya had been the stench of laserfire and scorched metal and thick smoke and screams of terror still ringing in Ratchet's audials. Uraya had been shattered dreams, his life turned to ash, and the abandonment of some of his core principles.  
  
Uraya had been Ratching watching his partner tear into patrolling Decepticons, destroying them before they could turn their blasters onto Ratchet and Sunstreaker. Uraya had turned Ratchet's very world on its axis.   
  
By contrast, walking into Praxus, still gleaming and functional, while guarded by a militia out in full force, is like walking into a recharge ghost-file. Ratchet's exhausted, his plating streaked with ash, his fingers weary of gripping his acquired blaster. There is an image seared into his memory core – a Decepticon symbol painted bold and bright on a chestplate until Ratchet's single shot took him down.   
  
He might still be alive. Ratchet will never know. He couldn't stop to check.  
  
“It's only a few kliks away,” Sunstreaker assures him, swords retracted, leaving him looking harmless, if not for the splatters of energon decorating his yellow frame. He's already brushed at them in disgust a few times, but there's naught he can do until they find some washracks.   
  
Which Sunstreaker has reassured Ratchet will be found at their destination.   
  
“I can make it,” Ratchet replies shortly.   
  
There's a certain manner to the way Sunstreaker is treating him, as though he were a delicate mech from the towers who can't handle himself. Instead of the chief director of a free clinic in Uraya's underground where gladiator mechs are known to frequent.   
  
Sunstreaker looks at him, but refrains from commenting, instead reaching with one servo to pry the blaster from Ratchet's grip. He tucks it away in subspace before Ratchet can form a comment either way, and curls his digits around Ratchet's elbow, guiding him out of the way of the crowded street.   
  
Clamping down on his anger, borne completely of concern, Ratchet focuses instead on the matter at servo. “Where, exactly, are we doing?”   
  
“Who do we know in Praxus, Ratchet?”   
  
Many mechs, including First Aid and his brothers. Sideswipe has a few business partners in Praxus, and Sunstreaker has one steady patron here as well. But most of all...  
  
The answer crawls through his sluggish processors like a bright spark. “Prowl.”   
  
“Yes.”   
  
Right now, it is probably one of the safest places, Ratchet must agree. Prowl is not only well-known amongst Praxians, he's also well-respected and a decent rank. There is also the matter that he runs a dojo of the finest Cybertronian martial arts, and only a fool would cross a master of metallikato. And circuit-su.   
  
With destination in mind, Ratchet feels some of the anxiety ease out of his circuits. They push through the crowded streets: residents fleeing Uraya, milling Praxians curious about recent events, and militia attempting to regain order. When Prowl's dojo comes into sight, Ratchet's spark all but sings in relief.   
  
They circle around to the back entrance, as the front gate has been closed and locked, and use their personal codes to enter through the back gate. As it slides shut behind them, locking once more, they find Sideswipe in a limping pace back and forth in the small courtyard, performing several loops around a few elegant benches.   
  
“What happened?” Sunstreaker growls, releasing Ratchet's arm as he stalks toward his brother, agitation in every line on his plating.   
  
Ah, that explains his rather surly behavior. Something has upset Sideswipe and by proxy, Sunstreaker, though he likely only picked up the stronger emotions.   
  
Sideswipe whirls on a pede toward his brother, his red armor scuffed and scratched, one optic dimmer than the other, obviously in need of a repair.   
  
“I'm not sure.” Sideswipe's gaze flickers to Ratchet before he turns, heading toward the back door, leaving them no choice but to follow.   
  
“What do you mean you're not sure?” Sunstreaker demands, storming after his brother.   
  
Ratchet trails along after them, an uncertain feeling growing in his spark, making it spin faster and faster.   
  
“I mean that I don't know!” Sideswipe retorts, voice pitched higher, stressed. Especially when Sunstreaker catches up to him, grabbing his elbow.   
  
“Where is Knock Out?” Sunstreaker hisses, and the two brothers stare at each other, nearly identical in expression now.   
  
Sideswipe jerks out of his twin's hold. “He's not here.” He lifts one servo, digits rubbing over a deep scratch on his other arm. “Something happened. Hot Spot's... gone. Down. Maybe offlined. I don't know. And Aid...” He trails off, staring pointedly at a doorway just down the hallway.   
  
Ratchet storms past the both of them, fear creeping up and threatening to blacken his processor, swallow everything whole. He sees First Aid laying on a berth, mostly undamaged but optics offline. A quick scan tells him that his former apprentice is in an medically induced recharge.   
  
“They had to sedate him,” Sideswipe says, and now the cause of his agitation makes sense.   
  
“The others?” Sunstreaker asks, and his words are a dim echo to Ratchet's audials.   
  
But where is Knock Out? Where is his youngling?  
  
Sideswipe shakes his helm. “As far as I can tell, Groove, Streetwise, and Blades are fine. They're back at the apartment, trying to organize some mechs to help them search.”   
  
“Where. Is. Knock Out?”   
  
The question echoes through the hallway, a shout, almost a scream and Ratchet is horrified to find out the demand has come from his own vocalizer. But if there's a point where rational actions meet irrational anxiety, Ratchet is quite certain he's passed it.   
  
Sideswipe looks at him, and by the slump in Sunstreaker's shoulders, the way his optics seem to find the scuffed floor so slaggin' fascinating, Ratchet can guess the bad news no one wants to say aloud.   
  
Ratchet gropes at his chestplates, where he can feel his spark spinning wildly, and connected to that silver-green pulse is a thin tether, intangible but present nonetheless. It pulses with life, and if Ratchet weren't so frantic from his own emotions, he might be able to detect the ghostly whispers of the mech on the other hand.   
  
“He's not offline,” Ratchet says, digits scrabbling over his red and white plating. “I would feel it. I would know! He's not offline, frag it!”   
  
Sideswipe lifts his servos, as if trying to soothe a rabid Empty like the ones sometimes creeping out of Uraya's shadowed alleys. “No one's saying he is,” the red twin murmurs, optics wide and pain emanating in his gaze. He's hurting, too, but here he is, trying to be the calm one.   
  
“Except where you are!” Ratchet shoots back, ventilations coming louder now, his systems reacting to his anxiety by reaching out. Sending an automatic ping to his youngling's comm and getting only static in return. Trying again and again and getting nothing.   
  
A roar of fury and then the sound of crunching metal as Sunstreaker's fist slams into the wall, denting it thoroughly. He whirls on one pede, stalking toward the exit.   
  
“Sunny!” Sideswipe calls out, and tries to half-limp, half-chase after his brother. “You can't go alone!”   
  
Fraggitall, Ratchet hates when they chat through their bond and don't fill him in. He's left floundering on the outside, trying to follow a conversation he can't hear.   
  
“Can and will,” Sunstreaker growls, energon swords anxiously peeking in and out of their sheaths. “Stay here, Sideswipe.”   
  
“No. I'm coming with you,” the red mech says stubbornly, but of course, his body isn't on the same datapad as him, as his knee abruptly gives out and Sideswipe has to grab the wall before he crumples to the floor.   
  
Sunstreaker pauses, half-turning back toward his brother and Ratchet who finds himself, for once, at a loss for both words and actions. “No,” he repeats, carefully, “you're not.”   
  
Something akin to hope burns brightly in Ratchet's spark, even as he crosses the length of the hall to attend to Sideswipe. “You're going to look for him,” Ratchet says, offering an arm to the red twin to haul Sideswipe to his pedes.   
  
Sideswipe leans on him heavily, only one leg functioning.   
  
“Yes,” Sunstreaker replies, and heads back toward them, until he's within touching distance, cobalt optics gleaming with determination. “I'll find Knock Out. And I'll bring him back.” _  
  
“Ratchet?” The soft touch on his arm jerks Ratchet out of his memory loop and into the present. He startles, dropping his soldering rod and whirls around.   
  
Perceptor lowers his hand. “I apologize. I didn't mean to startle you,” he says, taking a wise step back. “Jazz said you would be in here.”   
  
“It's fine,” Ratchet replies, and sends a command to his memory core, locking the past back where it belongs. “You were looking for me?”   
  
For the first time Ratchet can remember, Perceptor looks uncomfortable. “Yes.” He pauses, as though reconsidering. “Your report was very vague and I had a question.”   
  
“Concerning?”   
  
Another hesitation as Perceptor shifts in place before he gathers his mettle. “Starscream. Where is he?”   
  
Ahh. Ratchet should have seen this coming. The rumors of Perceptor and Starscream being... close prior to the beginning of the war had always lingered. Ratchet wonders if perhaps it is less rumor and more absolute truth. He won't go so far as to guess bonded, but partners perhaps. Friends at the very least.  
  
“We don't know.” Honesty is always the best policy with Perceptor. “No one has seen or heard from him since the Immobilizer incident. We suspect he's gone off planet.” Another interfactional squabble, or so Ratchet had assumed.   
  
Megatron and Starscream never got along on the best of orns, and Starscream's attempts to “defect” had come as no surprise to anyone. Though they hadn't truly believed him either. Starscream might not be completely loyal to Megatron, but he is completely loyal to himself and his aspirations.   
  
“I see.” Perceptor's words are even, betraying nothing, but he can't hide the cycling down of his optics, the lowering of his head in disappointment.   
  
Ratchet wishes he had something to say. Comforting perhaps. Or reassuring. But it all feels a bit too much like falsity. He hadn't wanted pretend hope when searching for Knock Out; he imagines Perceptor doesn't want empty promises now either.   
  
“There is every chance that he'll return.” Ratchet all but blurts out, for he honestly believes this. “Starscream will refuse to leave the Decepticons in Megatron's claws alone for long.” Also, where else would he go? To one of the many other planets they've managed to alienate with their war? To solitude and isolation on an uninhabited planet? To whatever remains functional in Cybertron, under Shockwave's command?  
  
No. Starscream will return to Earth, if only to try and wrest the Decepticons from Megatron's command and regain that modicum of respect he'd once had. Ratchet strongly suspects that Starscream plans to return, not only with backup, but with a plan sure to irritate Megatron into howls of epic proportion.   
  
Perceptor buzzes static, a noise of wordless agitation. “And what a bare consolation that is, for Starscream's return to Earth spells nothing but misfortune for this planet's native species.”   
  
\-- _Ratchet, we have a situation_.--  
  
Jazz's comm cut through any response Ratchet might have managed for Perceptor. And judging from the tilt of Perceptor's head, he'd received the same transmission. An exchange of glances and the two of them leave the medbay, heading for the main room.   
  
\-- _Decepticons?_ \-- Ratchet asks as he hurries, though honestly, what else could it be? MECH perhaps. They have been a bit too quiet since their last failed attempt to get their hands on a Cybertronian.   
  
Jazz doesn't reply, but Ratchet isn't offended. In all likelihood, the temporary commander prefers to explain things once rather than repeatedly.   
  
By the time Ratchet arrives in the main room, he feels the tingle of a powerful charge in the air as the Ground Bridge activates, Sunstreaker and Bluestreak arriving in their alt-modes. A flash and both mechs stand in their root modes, Bluestreak grinning as he sloppily salutes Jazz, more tease than an attempt at military precision.   
  
Sunstreaker is completely unreadable, closed off to everyone, even Sideswipe who sidles close to his brother and pokes him between two plates of ventral armor.   
  
Also, the humans are now here. Wonderful.   
  
Exactly how long had Ratchet spent lost in memories of the past?   
  
“Hey, Ratchet!” Miko says, waving both hands wildly from where she perches on Bulkhead's shoulder. “Did you miss us?”   
  
“You've been gone for a day at best,” he reminds her. “Which hardly gives me enough time to notice your absence, much less mourn it.”   
  
Sideswipe chuckles quietly. “Same old Ratch.”   
  
Miko's head turns his direction. “You mean he's always been this grumpy?”   
  
“From the orn we first met,” the red twin answers with a smirk, shuttering one optic in Ratchet's direction before focusing on Miko once again. “In fact, the first thing he did was throw a wrench at us. Left a dent, too!” He reaches up, pointing to a spot on his helm.   
  
Miko's eyes become big and round. “Wow.” She shifts her attention to Ratchet. “Bulk's lucky you haven't done that to him yet, isn't he?”   
  
Ratchet splutters. “That... that was a long time ago. Longer than your species has even existed!”   
  
“Except last week, when you threatened to reformat Bumblebee into a Volkswagon,” Arcee comments loftily, one hand gesturing pointedly.   
  
Bumblebee chirps in agreement, causing Rafael to burst into giggles from somewhere near Bumblebee's feet, where he's perched with his computer directly at hand.   
  
“A Volkswagen?” Jack repeats with an arched eyebrow, his arms crossed over his chest. “Doesn't sound like much of a threat.”   
  
Bumblebee's hand slashes through the air as he beeps a profound negative.   
  
Jack eyes the Scout. “I have no idea what you just said, but I think I can take a guess.”   
  
A burst of loud music, accompanied with a screech of guitar and a clash of cymbals, rings through the air, echoing over and over in the large room. Ratchet startles, suspecting Bulkhead and his loud human, but no, the sound came from their acting commander.   
  
“We could tease Ratch all orn about his temper, but there's a tiny problem of Cons to deal with first, doncha think?” Jazz points out, one servo gesturing behind him, to the main screen which shows Decepticon locator pings in a remote location, along with the scrolling information that detects unrefined energon.   
  
Bluestreak's engine rumbles, doorwings twitching. “We could use that energon,” he says. “Our supplies were getting low before we landed here, and from what I've seen, your supplies aren't any better. We probably outnumber the Cons right now so we should take advantage of that while we can. Who knows when the others are going to get here. I mean, Prowl's team is probably right around the corner, but I'll bet Megatron's already called some of his teams, too. We'll need all the energon we can get and now--”  
  
“Exactly,” Jazz agrees, smoothly cutting off his bonded's garrulous run without offending the gunner. “More than that, Prime wanted us to protect the humans, too. So that's what we're gonna do.”   
  
Ratchet moves past everyone, heading for the console and sliding into place. Right now, no one needs a medic, but they do need someone who knows how all this slapped-together half-glitched equipment really works. His fingers tap over the keys as he brings up more information, tapping into Earth's satellite system to hopefully get a visual and see what they were up against.   
  
The computer beeped at him as it accepted his override, and one of the screens to his right flickered as an image of Earth from space appeared on the screen. A few more taps of his fingers and Ratchet is able to zoom in on the coordinates, the sight of Cybertronian forms creeping across the landscape ever obvious. He can easily make out several miners and patrolling vehicons.   
  
Overseeing them, however, is a pair of Decepticons that Ratchet recognizes in a second. Breakdown, ever conspicuous with one missing optic, and Knock Out, his red plating gleaming in the bright sun.   
  
Ratchet's fingers pause over the keys as he stares at the screen, his spark spinning frantically in his chest. His cooling fans stall, and he sends a manual command to get them spinning again.   
  
“Knock Out's there,” Ratchet says, forcing himself into motion as he changes the angle of the picture, trying to count the number of vehicons present. The Nemesis is nowhere in immediate sight.   
  
Why would it be? Megatron is unlikely to take any chances to allow the Autobots to get close to Optimus – the amnesiac Orion. He'll want to keep his claws in his former partner for as long as it is feasible.   
  
Optimus will be lucky if he's ever allowed to see the sun again frankly.   
  
Jazz sidles up alongside Ratchet, visor trained on the screens. “I see him,” he says, vocalizer low.   
  
\-- _You want to do this now?_ \-- Jazz asks, switching to a private comm channel.   
  
Ratchet tilts his head, glancing once at Sunstreaker, whose optics are firmly locked on the satellite image showing their youngling. Sunstreaker's expression may be unreadable, but Ratchet can guess what his partner is thinking. That, alone, confirms it for Ratchet.   
  
He quickly cuts off the connection, unwilling to hack into any satellite for too long. He is competent at insinuating himself into the human's mainframes, but Soundwave is even more skilled than he is. Ratchet doesn't wish to give Soundwave any more opportunity to track them down than the communications mech already has.   
  
\-- _Yes_ ,-- Ratchet replies, and lays his palms flat on the keyboard, light enough that he doesn't depress the keys. -- _We may not get another chance. And if this works, he can help us get to Optimus._ \--  
  
Jazz taps Ratchet's arm in agreement. -- _Okay, Ratch. We'll do this_.-- He switches to his vocalizer, speaking aloud this time. “Two targets, my mechs. The energon and Knock Out.”   
  
Arcee lifts a hand pointedly, the other clamping down on Jack and stopping him from speaking whatever had caused him to open his mouth in the first place. “Question. Just how do you expect to bring a Decepticon here without offlining him first, or damaging any of us in the process?”   
  
“Wait a minute,” Miko says, waving her hands wildly as her eyes jump from bot to bot. “You want to bring him here? Why?”   
  
Silence falls in the wake of her question, all optics turning to Jazz in query. What will their temporary commander say?   
  
This is not something Ratchet wants the humans to know. He doesn't want them to get any false ideas about Cybertronians and their society. Especially considering what is considered the “norm” for human society. Ratchet can't even begin to contemplate the processor-ache that would be explaining partners and bonds and ensparked sparklings as opposed to fostered sparklings. For all that the humans know, Cybertronians don't form relationships like humans and Ratchet wants to keep it that way.   
  
He will lie if he must.   
  
Jazz taps his chin component, a scheming glint lighting behind his visor. “We gotta get Optimus back somehow, yanno. Seems like getting one of the Decepticons to interrogate – nicely I might add – is our best option. And Knock Out looks easier ta take than the other one.”   
  
Neither Jack nor Miko seem to be taking Jazz's answer at face value. Miko frowns, her eyes narrowed in suspicion while Jack looks up at his guardian, as though he plans to grill her thoroughly on the topic later. Ratchet will have to pull aside all three guardians later and remind them of the topics which are Off Limits for humans.   
  
Luckily, Rafael seems to be the only one in the realm of “whatever the boss bot says” because he's perched at a desk, typing furiously on his computer, conversely quietly with Bumblebee before offering up a comment on the site the Decepticons are currently mining.   
  
“That still doesn't answer my question,” Arcee inserts, tapping one foot with an echoing click. “How are we going to do this?”   
  
“A net?” Bulkhead suggests.   
  
“Are you serious? On a mech who can form a sawblade from his hand?”   
  
“I don't see anyone else making a suggestion,” Bulkhead retorts sullenly, scuffing the floor with the heel of his foot. He's been spending far too much time with his human.   
  
“Knock Out's a medic,” Sideswipe muses aloud. “He'd be able to override any sedative we might be able to patch into his system. Unless Ratchet does it.”   
  
Sunstreaker shakes his head firmly. “Absolutely not. Ratchet's not leaving the base.”   
  
“I'm quite sure that's not your call to make,” Arcee says, optics flashing. “Though I'm not disagreeing. No offense, Ratchet.”   
  
He's hardly listening to them at this point, processor whirling with plans, considered and dismissed. A way to subdue without harm and immediately.   
  
And Ratchet remembers.   
  
“I have an idea,” he says, turning away from the console and heading for one of the smaller side passages. “Give me a moment.”   
  
He can feel their optics watching him, but Ratchet doesn't stop to explain. They'll find out soon enough.   
  
He hurries to a storeroom, one of the few that are locked in their base. The others are locked, yes, but only to human hands. This particular storeroom is locked to Cybertronians as well, with only Ratchet and Optimus knowing the code to get inside. Well, now only Ratchet knows. It is another burst of data he will have to pass to Jazz before it slips his processor.   
  
Keying open the door to the small closet, Ratchet steps inside, the contents lit by the glow of his optics. The room is unlit, bulb having burnt out long ago, but he knows exactly what he's looking for.   
  
Along with the rest of the weapons regained from the Decepticons over the course of their clashes here on Earth, the Immobilizer sits on a top shelf, metal winking innocently. He never thought he'd have occasion to use it, as the threat of it possibly ending up in Decepticon claws again has always been too great. But right now, it's the best option they have for bringing Knock Out in without harm.   
  
\-- _Ratchet_?--   
  
\-- _I'm on my way, Jazz_.-- He snatches the Immobilizer carefully, then leaves the store room, taking care to seal the lock behind him.   
  
Ratchet hears the argument before he so much as steps into the doorway leading to the main room, Sunstreaker and Jazz nearly pede to pede as the yellow mech looms over an unintimidated Jazz. Luckily, they are speaking in Cybertronian, as what they are yelling is far from what Ratchet would like the humans to hear. Said humans, by the way, are currently peeking from behind their guardians, looking unnerved.   
  
“I don't give a frag. That's my youngling and I'm going!”   
  
“Because yer the best at keepin' a calm processor, right?” Jazz snorts, a grating noise of metal grinding against metal. “I need a mech that's gonna follow my orders, not interpret them creatively.”   
  
Ratchet steps much heavier than is necessary, announcing his arrival and interrupting the growing argument between Jazz and Sunstreaker. “No matter who goes, you're going to need this,” he says aloud, displaying the Immobilizer in front of him.   
  
- _-Just give in, Jazz. Sunstreaker's not going to back down and the two of you are scaring the children_ ,-- Ratchet adds in a narrow-band comm to their temporary commander. Normally, he wouldn't recommend letting Sunstreaker have his way, but in this, Ratchet agrees with his partner. One of them needs to be there.   
  
Jazz's visor flashes at Ratchet as they both turn toward the arriving medic. “What is it?” Jazz asks aloud, switching to English for the human's benefit.   
  
\-- _I will this time, Ratch. But he's going to pay for it later_.--  
  
\-- _Fair enough_.--  
  
“One of the Decepticon's weapons,” Ratchet answers, striding forward and handing it over to the saboteur. “The Immobilizer. And I believe the name says it all.”   
  
“It's actually awesome,” Miko's voice pipes up from somewhere within Bulkhead's armor, and her head pops out warily. “That is, when it's not being used against us.”   
  
“And it's more effective than a net,” Arcee adds with a pointed glance at Bulkhead. “Good idea, Ratchet.”   
  
Ratchet waves off the compliment and returns to the console. “I knew it would come of use eventually. Jazz, if you're going to do this, now's the time. The Decepticons don't have a habit of lingering.”   
  
Jazz twists the Immobilizer around his fingers in a skilled move that would make any trained martial arts planned. “Gotcha. Sunny. Arcee. Bulk. Sides. You're with me. Rest of ya, stay with Ratchet.”   
  
His fingers flying over the keys, Ratchet starts prepping the Ground Bridge for transport to the necessary coordinates. “And Miko stays here,” Ratchet says loudly, pointedly, all without looking at said human.   
  
“Awww. You're gonna make me miss all the action again?” the young girl whines but lets her Bulkhead set her down on the human-sized platform, in front of the television she's known to frequent.   
  
No one responds to Miko's complaint, but Ratchet does catch a glimpse of Jack shaking his head in exasperation at her.   
  
Jazz chuckles, twirls the Immobilizer again, and tucks it away in his subspace. “Autobots! Roll out!” he says, collapsing into his alt-mode. “Ratchet, bridge us out.”   
  
Unable to help himself, Ratchet smirks. “Yes sir.” He curls his finger around the activating lever and pulls it down, power surging through the systems as the Bridge lights up the main tunnel, a swirling vortex of complex energies gleaming iridescent.   
  
He turns to watch as Jazz revs his engine and speeds into the Bridge, his assigned team dropping into their alt-modes and following after him with no argument, Bulkhead bringing up the rear per the usual. Sunstreaker doesn't spare Ratchet a backward glance and not for the first time, Ratchet laments the fact that they aren't bonded, that they can't speak to each other without words.   
  
He has no one to blame but himself.   
  
The moment his systems register that Jazz's team have arrived safely at the coordinates, Ratchet shuts off the ground bridge and turns his full attention to the battle at hand. He brings up Jazz's comm channel, along with the four others, putting their stats and channels up on one screen, as the image of the dig site remains on the main one.   
  
The rest of the Autobots crowd around behind him, all watching as the Autobot signals approach those of the Decepticons.

 

***


	8. Chapter 8

“I don't know why Megatron's bothering with this one. There's hardly enough energon to feed his troops for an Earth week, much less a month,” Jazz transmits over the comms, which then plays through the console in the main room so that everyone can hear him.   
  
Ratchet tries to focus, to chase away the anxious trembles in his plating. “I suspect this raid is less about replenishing his stock and more about testing our ability to respond without Optimus leading us.”   
  
Jazz's laughter echoes around the base, full of amusement and challenge.   
  
“Megs has always underestimated us.”  
  
“I wouldn't be so sure of that,” Ratchet retorts. “Megatron is no fool. He's only gotten craftier as of late, and I've no doubt he's hatching something.”   
  
“Nothing we can't handle,” Jazz sends back with utter confidence.   
  
On the screen, the red dots rapidly approach the purple dots, one of them streaking ahead of the other four, a second quickly following. Ratchet doesn't even need Jazz to tell him which of their team just broke the line.   
  
“Tell those fool twins that if they get themselves scrapped, I'm not wasting the energon to fix them,” Ratchet growls, never taking his optics off the screen.   
  
“Tell us yourself!” Sideswipe taunts, cutting into the comm effortlessly. “Been a while since we could kick some real Decepticon aft.”   
  
Sunstreaker is noticeable in his silence.   
  
“Just remember what else you're there for, Sideswipe,” Ratchet says stiffly. Though he knows good and well that Sideswipe wouldn't do anything to risk harming Knock Out, kin of his kin.   
  
The sound of blaster fire cuts into the transmission. Jazz shouts for them to take cover, though Ratchet can tell from the screen that the twins have chosen to disregard that order. One of them launches himself at a vehicon and judging from the battle cry, it was Sideswipe.   
  
\-- _One of these days, I'm going to have ya reformat them into somethin' a little more inclined ta obey_ \-- Jazz sends to Ratchet alone, though his grumbling is good-natured.   
  
\-- _They wouldn't be themselves if you did that_ \-- Ratchet replies, despite his own previous threats to the terrible twins.   
  
Amusement trickles across the communication before it abruptly shuts down as all of Jazz's focus shifts to the battle at hand. Ratchet twitches, tempted to hack into the satellite systems again, just for a glimpse, an idea of what the skirmish must be like. But the chance of discovery is too great, the risk too high. Logically, he shouldn't even have done so earlier.   
  
“Arcee, swing around the back, drive him toward me.”  
  
“Got it.”   
  
“Sideswipe! Stop playing around and get over here!”   
  
“Sure thing, boss.”   
  
More blaster fire. The sound of metal impacting metal. A screech of gears, the distinctive noise of mechs shifting from alt-mode to root-mode and back again.   
  
“Fraggit all!” Jazz curses and sounds truly annoyed this time as the squeal of slammed brakes echoes in the monitor room. “Sunstreaker!”   
  
Ratchet's optics flicker to the stat screen, but no one appears to be damaged. Therefore, Sunstreaker must have done something foolish.   
  
“This is my battle to fight, Jazz,” Sunstreaker says, voice calm and even, but Ratchet can hear the undertones. The determination, the pain. “Stay out of this.”   
  
“Sunstreaker!” There's a clash, and Jazz curses in Cybertronian, no doubt faced with a handful of vehicons. “Ratchet!”   
  
He shakes his helm, speaking into the comm system. “I'm no more capable of telling him what to do than you are, Jazz.”   
  
“Knock Out!” Sunstreaker's voice echoes around the main room.   
  
It's a shout, meant to gain attention. Ratchet wishes more than anything he could see what is going on, could lay optics on his youngling.   
  
He hears a chuckle, picked up through Sunstreaker's external audio sensors.   
  
“Well, well. The Autobots have summoned back up, have they?”   
  
Knock Out's sultry tones hold no pattern of recognition, no hint that he knows who Sunstreaker is. Ratchet's every processing unit is focused on their interaction, what he can hear of it.   
  
“Just hold still,” Sunstreaker orders, and Ratchet's probably the only one who can hear the ache in his voice. “It'll all be over soon.”  
  
Knock Out chuckles, and there's the distinct sound of an energon prod powering up.   
  
“Bring it on, Sunshine.”   
  
Ratchet's fingers curl on the metal paneling of the console as he listens. He can almost see them facing each other, and he feels utterly useless. All he can hear is the sound of metal clashing, Jazz shouting orders, and the shouts of the vehicons.   
  
A hand lands on his shoulder, squeezing lightly. “This is gonna work,” Bluestreak murmurs, and his optics don’t leave the screen in front of them either. “It has to. Jazz won't let it end any other way.”   
  
“Your confidence is reassuring,” Ratchet replies but flinches as he hears Sideswipe give a grunt of pain, only to follow it up with a roaring battle cry. “I hope you’re right.”   
  
“Ratchet!!” Sunstreaker's demand vibrates through the speakers and causes a screech of audial-wincing feedback. “Send the Ground Bridge. Now!”  
  
Ratchet hesitates but only because Sunstreaker is technically not in charge of this mission, and the last thing they all need right now is a power struggle. Jazz's command quickly follows, however.   
  
“Do it, Ratch.”   
  
His fingers fly across the keyboard. One hand shakes as it lifts to the touch screen to reactivate the landing coordinates for the first bridge.   
  
“Ground Bridge appearing in three... two... one.”   
  
He throws the lever. Power swells in the base as green-blue light swirls in the tunnel, opening the connection for their friends. Ratchet turns toward the bridge, watching with growing impatience as Arcee is the first to come through in alt-mode before flipping into root-mode. Her plating is a bit scorched, and there’s an irritated look on her face, but she’s otherwise unharmed. Bulkhead quickly follows, towing a small flatbed piled with unrefined energon. Part of Ratchet relaxes at the sight of it, though Jazz was right. There is only enough to keep them going for about two Earth weeks. A paltry amount compared to their needs.   
  
Sunstreaker and Sideswipe come next, dragging an immobile Knock Out between them, and Jazz brings up the rear, mere seconds behind the twins. Ratchet hurries to close down the bridge before any possibly conscious Cons get it in their processors to follow.   
  
Jazz looks absolutely furious, his plating clamped to his frame as he stomps across the floor until he stops in front of the twins. Ratchet hurries to interrupt. His spark flips at the sight of his immobile youngling, whose plating is scorched and dented, one arm hanging at an angle that Ratchet doesn't like the look of.   
  
“I knew I shoulda made you stay behind,” Jazz hisses, in that moment resembling an infuriated Prowl so strongly that Ratchet is shocked that they aren't true brothers once again. “You compromised the entire mission!”   
  
Sunstreaker straightens to his full height, which surpasses Jazz's. Not that the acting commander is in the least bit intimidated.   
  
“We got the energon. We have Knock Out. What else matters?”   
  
\--Jazz, the humans!-- Ratchet tightbeams to his commanding officer, wanting nothing more than to grab his youngling and haul him away from prying eyes. But he at least has to maintain his composure lest Sunstreaker ruins it for them all.   
  
Jazz straightens, gaze narrowing on the humans. They all look a tad bit nervous, huddled together there on the catwalk. His visor flashes then, and he visibly regains control.   
  
“Bulkhead, take the energon ta the storeroom,” he says, gaze swiveling back to the twins and their immobilized captive. “Ratchet, I don't remember there being mention of a brig.”   
  
“Space is at a premium. We've not had need for one prior to now,” the medic puts in quietly, fingers twitching. Aching to repair and replace and touch and reassure...   
  
“Suggestions?”   
  
Jazz sounds in control, but Ratchet is not fooled. His battle systems are still charged, and the fingers of one hand are clenching and unclenching rhythmically. His energy field is a swirling maelstrom of tension.   
  
Bumblebee isn’t oblivious to the tension and swiftly offers up a suggestion, one hand pointing to the side hall as he beeps at them.   
  
“He's right. The Safe's our best bet. It's further underground and away from young eyes," Ratchet says.   
  
Inclining his helm sharply, Jazz sweeps a sharp visor over the gathered mechs and the humans, who’re watching with wide, curious eyes. To be fair the only violence the three have witnessed has been between the factions, never between Autobots themselves. Pits, they rarely so much as raised their voices to one another!  
  
“Perceptor, take monitor duty,” Jazz orders in a deceptively calm tone. “Blue, Sideswipe, on patrol. Bee, Arcee, take care o' the kids. Ratchet, Sunstreaker, yer with me.”   
  
Remarkably, no one argues, though Sideswipe gets a distinctly mulish set to his faceplates. He has a few dents and dings and what looks to be a minor rupture in an energon line, but his self-repair should fix that in a matter of minutes. His optics dart from his brother to Ratchet and then the immobilized Knock Out before he takes a step back and drops into alt-mode.   
  
He and Bluestreak disappear down the exit tunnel without so much as a word exchanged. Though the buzz on the edge of Ratchet's sensors detects the presence of narrow band comms between them.   
  
Wordlessly, Perceptor takes his position at the console. Arcee and Bumblebee head toward the children, the femme muttering something about a video game system that will keep them occupied – though no doubt bombarding their guardians with their inquisitive minds.   
  
This leaves Ratchet to take the other side of Knock Out as he and Sunstreaker follow Jazz out of the main room and down one of the long hallways. Mercifully, Jazz waits until they are out of sight and direct earshot before he starts speaking, and even then, he uses a low hiss certain to go unnoticed by anyone other than the three of them.   
  
“You're slaggin' lucky Bulkhead managed to grab that energon when he did,” Jazz snaps at Sunstreaker as Ratchet directs them toward a large door at the far end that leads to an equally large service elevator.   
  
At one time, it had probably been used to transport missiles and other sensitive equipment within this abandoned base. Now, it's just large enough for the four of them to squeeze inside, lucky that Jazz is a minibot. Though, again, Ratchet knows far better than to ever say such a thing to the saboteur's face.  
  
Sunstreaker's grip on Knock Out's half-reaching arm tightens minutely. The sound of bending metal is all too loud in the otherwise tense silence.   
  
“Punish me if you have to, Jazz. I was not letting this chance slip by.”   
  
Ratchet decides it's in his best interest not to get between either of them. He can't be completely unbiased, not when Sunstreaker returned with their youngling. Not when Knock Out is here, in their base, and Ratchet can finally get to figuring out what went wrong. What had happened all those vorns ago.   
  
“Since when has that done me or Prowler or even Prime any good?” Jazz snarls with a very good approximation of a growl in his vocalizer. “If I didn't understand what this meant ta ya, I'd be slammin' your aft into the wall right now.”   
  
Sunstreaker's optics flash. “It would be interesting to see you try. Sir.”   
  
The title is more insult than respect. Sunstreaker has only ever obeyed his superiors because he chooses to do so, if and when it suits him. That and it only took one time of Optimus putting him in his place, in such a way that even Sunstreaker can respect, for him to accept Optimus as his commanding officer.   
  
Jazz, Ironhide, and even Prowl, however, have not quite approached that level of respect so deeply ingrained in Sunstreaker. He appreciates Jazz, has always deferred to him out of regard for their past friendship, but when Sunstreaker sets his optics on something, there is little that can deter him. This Ratchet knows all too well.   
  
Pits! Sunstreaker has never truly listened to Ratchet either! Not even after Prime appointed Ratchet as his CMO.   
  
Admittedly, Ratchet can't be sure what exactly would happen in a clash between Jazz and Sunstreaker. The former has the wiles, the cunning, the skills in metallikato and superior speed. But Sunstreaker is all power and fury with the tricks of street-fighting ingrained in his reflexes and a killer instinct. Literally.   
  
Either way, Ratchet doesn't want to be stuck putting them both back together once the energon's done flying and circuits stop sparking.   
  
He keys open the door to the safe and once it slides open, helps Sunstreaker maneuver Knock Out inside, Jazz on their heels. The door slides back shut, locking with a musical beep, confining Ratchet with the clash of two furious, stubborn egos.   
  
“Can we not argue about this right now?” Ratchet snaps, gaze darting between the two of them. “I need to concentrate, not worry about breaking up an altercation!”   
  
Jazz and Sunstreaker exchange equally contrary looks – more obvious in the later than the former – before Jazz seems to let things go. For now.   
  
“Fine,” their leader says, stalking away from Sunstreaker and approaching Ratchet. “Start by telling me what we're gonna do about Knock Out here.”   
  
Ratchet ventilates loudly. “First, I'm going to power him down. Safer than stasis.” He circles around his immobilized youngling, drawing out a medical interfacing cord.   
  
Knock Out's had several upgrades over the vorns. The design of his frame is so unfamiliar to Ratchet. It's nothing like the protoform he and Sunstreaker had worked so hard to create. It's still a lovely frame, the chameleon mesh of his armor light yet durable, and the flexibility of his joints are capable of a wide range of motion.   
  
Yet... it's not the same frame that his creators had given him, and Ratchet feels a pang in his spark at the realization. No wonder he hadn't recognized Knock Out until they met faceplate to faceplate, optic to optic, and their energy fields barely brushing.   
  
Ratchet circles Knock Out twice before he finds a medical access port, behind a ventral plate close to his spark chamber. It makes sense, Ratchet supposes, as Knock Out is a medic himself and would need one that's easy for himself to access, yet out of the way of his hands.   
  
As gentle as he can manage, Ratchet plugs in and narrows down his focus, swept up in the multi-tiered layers of Knock Out's programming. There's more here than Ratchet and Sunstreaker ever gave their youngling. Things he's picked up over the vorns. Programming other mechs gave him. Memories are locked tight behind a partition, and Ratchet leaves them alone for now.   
  
Knock Out's firewalls are vicious, more vicious than Ratchet has ever seen. Which leaves him to wonder if he's ever allowed anyone close, if he's so much as connected to another mech for the sake of interfacing, or if he's kept to the much safer tactile play. Laced with viruses, processor-frying trip wires, and memory wipes, Knock Out's firewalls require a delicate touch. A lesser medic would have found himself insensate and less aware than a sparkling right now.   
  
Luckily, Ratchet has eons of experience as a wartime medic shoring up his defenses. That and eons of working on the fringes of Cybertronian society have prepared him for the surprises one might find in another mech's processor. He forges onward, cleaving through Knock Out's firewalls with an odd tangle of gentle coaxing and stubborn persistence. It helps that Knock Out's systems recognize Ratchet's presence to a degree.   
  
Knock Out's frame may be unfamiliar, as well as much of the newer software, but the underlying programming is every bit Ratchet's sparkling. Something akin to relief rushes through Ratchet at this small reassurance, this small proof that the red-plated mech in front of him is truly his long-missing mechling.   
  
The last firewall drops, and Ratchet's granted access. For the moment, he ignores everything but Knock Out's main protocols, gently sending his youngling into power down mode. Similar to recharge but locked with a medic's code so that only Ratchet can bring him out of it. And if he uses his creator-codes to make sure that Knock Out's own medic programming doesn't override it, well, Ratchet doesn't have to share said information.   
  
Reluctantly, Ratchet withdraws from Knock Out's systems, as carefully as he can manage considering the fallen firewalls he leaves in his wake. Back to his own awareness, Ratchet disconnects the medical access line and straightens.   
  
“You can mobilize him now,” he says gruffly, spark spinning and twisting within his chassis. He absently rubs over his chestplate.   
  
Sunstreaker pulls the Immobilizer from his subspace, spinning the device expertly in his fingers. “He won't wake?”   
  
“No.” Ratchet hesitates as he shifts his gaze to Jazz. “Unless you'd prefer I leave him like this?”   
  
Jazz folds his arms over his chest. “Do as you will, Ratchet. Between the three of us, I'm sure we can handle him.”   
  
The traces of irritation are gone from his tone, but Ratchet doesn't relax. Sunstreaker makes a noise of disgust, but activates the Immobilizer, which allows Knock Out's unconscious frame to slump out of the awkward pose in which it's been trapped. Ratchet hurries to catch the red mech, lowering him more gently to the floor. If Miko's stories are anything to go by, Knock Out loathes scratches and dings to his paintjob to such a degree that rivals only his genitor, Sunstreaker.   
  
Shoving the Immobilizer in Jazz's direction, Sunstreaker moves to Knock Out's other side, carefully cradling the Decepticon with unfailingly gentle motions. The arm that had worried Ratchet earlier seems to be fine now. He chalks it up to the awkwardness of an immobilization.   
  
“What now, Ratchet?” Sunstreaker asks, vocalizer low but conveying the pain he's been so very good at hiding up until now. His expression is neutral, but his energy field says it all.   
  
Ratchet kneels, one hand resting on Knock Out's shoulder. “Now, I do my best to understand what’s happened to our mechling.”   
  
He nearly startles when a yellow-plated hand covers his. Ratchet looks up, Sunstreaker's optics boring into his. He doesn't say anything, not with Jazz standing right there to bear witness, but his actions speak more than words.   
  
“I don't know what I'm going to find,” Ratchet continues softly. “We have to be prepared for the worst.”   
  
A whisper of sound, a footfall in the open space of the room. “Decepticon or not, he'll always be your youngling,” Jazz comments, and his voice says everything they can’t.  
  
Always theirs indeed.   
  
“Except that he's not a youngling,” Ratchet murmurs, his processor struggling to delineate between the young bot of his memories and the very adult mech before him now. “Not anymore.”  
  
Neither Jazz nor Sunstreaker have anything to say in respond to that. What is there to say but empty reassurances? The truth of the matter remains. Their mechling had grown from a youngling into an adult without them.   
  
Ratchet forces a ventilation cycle, then reluctantly draws his hand from under Sunstreaker's. He gently turns Knock Out's head to the side, seeking a cortical access port, not unlike the one used to connect Bumblebee and Megatron what feels like such a long time ago. Except that this particular method is not banned. Though there are few medics who know how to perform it properly anymore. Ratchet is one of these few, and will connect to Knock Out through the port, as opposed to the more impersonal medical access.  
  
It's also more dangerous, but the only way to be absolutely certain, granting him greater access to all of Knock Out's processor, rather than just the physical systems. It'll give Ratchet the opportunity to examine his very coding, to take a closer look at everything outside of spark resonance that gives Knock Out personality. He'll be able to do a complete processor scan, check the integrity of his data systems, and see if any of it has been altered in any possible way. He'll also be able to bypass the barriers surrounding Knock Out's memories, if needed.   
  
Ratchet flicks open the small panel covering the tiny port and once again withdraws his medical access cord. He plugs in as gently as he can manage and rests his hand on Knock Out's chestplate, over a gleaming headlight.   
  
Accessing a mech's physical systems requires only a basic focus. Ratchet's awareness still remains attached to his own form, and he can return in a moment's notice with little to no repercussions. Accessing through a mech's cortical port is entirely different. It involves Ratchet's entire being immersing itself through the connection, not unlike Soundwave's oft-rumored telepathy. Though he won't be intruding upon Knock Out's consciousness, like if this were a psychic patch. That’s the true danger.   
  
Ratchet's own systems shift into a power saver mode, different than shut down, and only operating the basic functions. Energon continues to pump, his HUD remains active, but the awareness is gone. And were he to be startled, abruptly yanked from the connection and shoved back into his own processor, the consequences could be dire. Coding errors, fractured synapses, fried circuits...  
  
But for his own youngling, there’s little Ratchet wouldn’t risk.   
  
On the edge of his awareness, he senses Jazz beginning to pace, a slow and steady loop around the three of them sprawled out over the floor. Their position is less than ideal, but furniture is pretty well nil around the base, at least in Cybertronian size. The floor is all that they have to offer right now.   
  
Jazz registered, Sunstreaker near enough that their energy fields mingle, Ratchet closes down his connection to his own frame, and narrows down his focus onto Knock Out. He shutters his optics and turns his awareness inward, all of the data streams that comprise his existence coalescing into a near-tangible current that follows the flow outward, traveling along the cable and sliding into Knock Out's systems.   
  
It's an experience hard to put into words, hard to describe. Ratchet hasn't the imagination for lyrical or poetical descriptions. He's sure that Sunstreaker could paint quite the vivid image of what Ratchet is “seeing” or experiencing right now. But all Ratchet has access to is the clinical descriptions and the scientific terminology and the medical analyses.   
  
His own data stream feels like a twined spool of green and silver, his awareness shored by rigid barriers but spontaneous reflexes. Knock Out's data stream, by contrast, is a woven web of gold and green and Decepticon purple. Knock Out's conscious lies quiescent, cowed by the power shut down and Ratchet's medical codes. There is a flicker of recognition – creator meeting creation – where Knock Out's stream turns luminescent, before it settles once again.   
  
Ratchet takes a single, aching moment to admire his youngling's very self, the coil of data that is Knock Out's thoughts and core coding and life systems. It’s the only thing that has proven familiar so far. As much as he desires to do so, he can't linger. He can't risk Jazz or Sunstreaker thinking he's taking too long and daring to disturb him. Reluctantly, Ratchet moves along.   
  
Every Cybertronian for the most part, has their inner workings arranged in the same manner. The outer plating may change. The running programs might be altered, added, or deleted. The locations, however, remain the same.   
  
Ratchet decides it's in his best interest to check Knock Out's core coding first. It’s the most integral part of Knock Out's function, ruling his every thought and action and value. If the Decepticons had altered anything, it’d be his core coding.   
  
He sinks deeper, until lines of code appear in front of him, resembling little more than strings of electric impulses interspersed with computing language that very few are capable of understanding. Most medics, yes, and some scientists like Perceptor. But the average mech? No.   
  
Soundwave, Ratchet knows, is an excellent programmer and coder. Ratchet half-expects to find Soundwave's signature everywhere if any changes have been made. No matter how brilliant a programmer is, they’ll always leave evidence behind. Glitched connections, contrary commands, and possibly dark or blank spots where the coding had been completely erased.   
  
He finds none of this. No matter how hard Ratchet searches or how closely he follows each line of coding, he can find nothing that indicates an alteration has been made. He sees where some has been added and easily identifies that which is similar to his own: namely medic protocols and the groundwork for battle systems. But nothing which could change Knock Out's core personality. There is not a single scrap of evidence of tampering, not even so much as a glitched circuit in his personality matrix.   
  
Ratchet honestly can't say if he's disappointed or not. Relieved that his youngling hasn't had to go through something as loathsome as forced coding alteration. Disappointed that it isn't the explanation for Knock Out's wartime choices.   
  
Backing away from Knock Out's coding, Ratchet shifts his focus to his mechling's processors. A complete wipe would be the more prominent culprit, though it wouldn't be beyond the Decepticons to only erase portions of Knock Out's processing systems. Simply removing the recognition software between friend and foe would go lengths to shift an impressionable youngling to their side.   
  
Once again, there is nothing. No sign of tampering, nothing to indicate Decepticon involvement in Knock Out's faction choice. Any alterations have Knock Out's personal stamp upon them, no sign of Soundwave or Hook or pits, even Vortex.   
  
This time, Ratchet winces out of true disappointment but forges on. There has to be something. Part of him hopes there to be something.   
  
Knock Out's circuits are unaltered. They're carrying all of the information properly with no corruption along the route. Frag it.   
  
His spark chamber displays no signs of forced merging or tampering. It retains its integrity. All Ratchet learns is that his youngling has not been forcibly bonded. Or bonded at all, for that matter. He could have a partner, however, and Ratchet wouldn't know.   
  
Out of options, Ratchet can only check one other thing: Knock Out's memory core. Ascertaining the integrity of it is easy enough. With a glance, Ratchet can tell no alterations have been made. That there aren't large gaps in the circuitry nor does it exhibit sign of tampering. The true test lies in going deeper which is infinitely more dangerous.   
  
Initiating the cortical connection is hazardous enough, but to actively access Knock Out's memory core, relive Knock Out's memories from his youngling's point of view... Ratchet runs the risk of being trapped in Knock Out's systems for an unknown future. Much like Megatron had hitched a ride within Bumblebee, Ratchet will be trapped within his youngling, lost without the tether to take him back to his own frame.   
  
He can't let that happen. Nor will he let this chance pass him by. He has to know. Steeling himself, Ratchet ghosts into Knock Out's memory core and immediately finds himself in the past.

 

****


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is about 95% flashback. Every bit but the last scene.

Knock Out squirms as the soft cloth rubs over his helm, the ends of it brushing over his sensory crest.   
  
“Be still,” his genitor says, a firm hand resting on his shoulder.   
  
His legs kick out, fingers gripping the stool beneath him. “It tickles,” Knock Out grumbles as the polishing cloth works more oil into his finish, until his black paint gleams perfectly. Sunstreaker wouldn't have it any other way.   
  
Thanks to his genitor, Knock Out and his carrier are always perfectly painted, polished, and primed. Oh, and Sides is, too. Sunstreaker always refuses to leave the apartment with his brother unless Sides gleams, too.   
  
“Every orn with you,” Sunstreaker retorts, but there's a smile in his tone. “Yesterorn, it was your neck cables. Orn before that, your elbow joint. I think you're just overly sensitive, bitlet.”   
  
“That or he's realized what we all did a vorn ago,” Ratchet says as he walks past, carrying a box with bits and pieces dangling out the side of it. Another random science project again?   
  
His genitor finishes Knock Out's helm, but moves to his upper dorsal plating, as though finding a smudge that offends him. “And what would that be?”   
  
Ratchet smirks. “That your vanity has no limits. And now our poor mechling has to suffer for it.”   
  
“I like being shiny!” Knock Out protests, and hunches his shoulders as the polishing cloth gets a gap between his plating, making him squirm again. “Spot tells me he can see his reflection in my chassis!”   
  
Sunstreaker chuckles, cloth-carrying hand clamping down on Knock Out's helm as he curls his other arm around his sparkling from behind, pulling him backward into a light embrace. “Don't listen to your carrier, Knock Out. He'd go around scuffed and covered in dried energon if I left him to it.”   
  
Rolling his optics, Ratchet scoffs. “I can see when I'm outnumbered. Carry on.” Shifting the weight of the box to one arm, his creator waves them off and continues down the hall.   
  
Knock Out laughs softly. They've had this conversation so many times and it never changes!   
  
His genitor's forehelm crest touches the back of his helm, affection rising in Sunstreaker's energy field, making Knock Out's spark spin happily. “That's my mechling,” his genitor says with an affectionate squeeze before he pulls back. “Now, let's get you polished up.”   
  
Knock Out sticks out his arm, just to be contrary, and points at his elbow with his other hand. “You missed a spot.”   
  
o0o0o  
  
“I'm scared,” Knock Out whispers, because he doesn't want his genitor to hear him. Sunstreaker says he should always be brave. That he's got a fighter's spirit and a warrior's spark and he should let it show.   
  
Ratchet lays his palm on Knock Out's ventral plating, right over his spark, sending a warm pulse through his hand. “I know,” Ratchet says, his voice gentle, unlike when he usually deals with patients. “It'll be fine, mechling. Before you know it, you'll be out of that too-tiny frame and into one that actually fits. You'll be able to stretch out and be comfortable again.”   
  
He trusts his creator with every pulse of his spark, but Knock Out can't help being a little apprehensive. Upgrading to a youngling frame doesn't sound safe. Transferring his spark to another frame? It sounds outright dangerous! Even if Ratchet tells him that he's done it a hundred thousand times and everyone has to go through it.   
  
“I could wait a little longer,” Knock Out suggests, moving to rise from the med-berth. “Honestly. It's not that bad...”   
  
His creator's hand on his chassis is firm, but gentle as it pushes him back down. “It's time, my mechling. Don't worry. You know I wouldn't let anything happen to you. Ever.” Azure optics glimmer with love.   
  
Knock Out forces a ventilation, tries to make himself relax. “I know,” he replies, though he still feels a bit reluctant. Until a thought occurs to him. “Will you let Sides teach me how to fight now?” Ratchet had always said sparklings were too young to know anything of martial arts, but if he upgrades, maybe his carrier will let him learn?   
  
Ratchet chuckles, fingers brushing Knock Out's cheekplates gently. “Yes, Knock Out. I'll let that red menace teach you a few things. But only if you work hard on your lessons.”   
  
He scowls. “They're boring.”   
  
“But important,” his creator counters. “And you know your genitor agrees with me. He wants everything for you he couldn't have.”   
  
Knock Out expels air from his vents loudly. “Fine,” he grumbles, and shifts on the medberth, almost surprised to find he's no longer as anxious as he was. He puts on his bravest face. “Do your worst, carrier.”   
  
Ratchet laughs at him, shaking his helm. “You are your genitor's mechling.”   
  
o0o0o  
  
Sides is a lot more patient than other mechs believe. Sure, sometimes he acts like he doesn't have the time and he's really busy, but he always has a cycle or two to spare for Knock Out. Especially when both his genitor and carrier are busy with other things and Knock Out's bored out of his processor. Sides is always there with a game or a vidfile or even a good bookfile.   
  
Right now, however, Knock Out's finally convinced Sides to teach him something. He knows both his genitor and Sides fight in the gladiator pits. He keeps asking to go see them, but they always say no. His carrier has vowed to turn the twins into something unpleasant if they even consider taking his mechling to the pits. So Knock Out doesn't get to go no matter how much he wants to. But he's seen them spar with each other, seen how fast his genitor can be, and how tricky Sides gets when Sunny pins him.   
  
“Hold your fist up like this. No, like this.”   
  
Sides takes Knock Out's fist physically in hand, folding his fingers the right way and tilting his arm the way it should be. “Good. Now bring up the other, closer to your frame. You want to be able to defend yourself, too.”   
  
Concentrating, Knock Out does as Sides explains, trying to get used to keeping his pedes in their stance – loose, but prepared.   
  
“Now what?” Knock Out asks, looking hopefully up at his genitor's brother.   
  
Sides grins, hands planted on his hip spurs proudly. “Now we spar. And you try not to end up on your aft.”   
  
“Don't you dent my mechling!” Sunstreaker hollers from the sidelines, where he's set up with a sketching datapad and a stylus, intending to draw while he supervises Knock Out's first fighting lesson.   
  
Sides tosses his brother a very rude gesture that he's not supposed to use in front of Knock Out. “Stuff it, Sunny.”   
  
“Don't call me that!”   
  
Ignoring his twin, Sides switches his attention to Knock Out. He easily shifts into a defensive position, similar to the one he taught Knock Out. “Okay, mechlet. Try and attack me.”   
  
“Aren't you going to teach me something first?”   
  
Sides cocks his helm to the side. “Learn by doing. That's the way things work.”   
  
Knock Out isn't so sure that this is the best course of action. Sides isn't quite as vicious as Sunstreaker when it comes to sparring, but he's still a force to be reckoned with. Knock Out's not fooled by Sides' cheerful exterior. He eyes the red twin warily.   
  
“Come on. I won't hurt you,” Sides says. “Well, beyond what bumps and dings you might need for learning.”   
  
Knock Out leans forward, and then backpedals a step. “You want me to just... attack?”   
  
“That's the idea.”   
  
Scrap. He's going to get his aft pulverized.   
  
o0o0o  
  
His pede catches a piece of debris and Knock Out loses his balance, stumbling and lurching to the side. A firm hand clamps down on his shoulder, stopping him from falling.   
He looks up at his escort gratefully.   
  
“Thanks, Spot.”  
  
Hot Spot's expression is impossible to tell behind his battle mask, but by the gleam in his optics, Knock Out knows he's smiling. “Stay close to me.”   
  
That will be no problem. As staying close to Hot Spot is exactly where Knock Out wants to be, aside from with his caretakers, but neither Ratchet nor Sunstreaker are here right now. He and Hot Spot are supposed to meet them in Praxus. Soon.   
  
Hot Spot's hand drops from Knock Out's shoulder and takes his hand, clutching it carefully. “We have to be quick, Knock Out.”   
  
“I know.”   
  
They hurry, trying to keep their travel quiet. Sticking to shadows and alleys, ducking in and out of teetering buildings, all the while, their optics on the sky. Every time Hot Spot heard so much as the whine of a Seeker turbine, it was down, and they cowered behind the nearest cover, hoping not to attract the keen optic of a Decepticon Seeker.   
  
Knock Out had already asked why the Decepticons attacked Uraya. Hot Spot couldn't give him an answer. He didn't know.   
  
He said that the Decepticons were angry with the High Council. That Megatron was leading them and he wanted freedom for everyone. Freedom and equal rights. Which doesn't sound like a bad idea in Knock Out's opinion.   
  
“It's not a bad idea,” Hot Spot had said. “Megatron's not wrong, per se. But killing everyone to get what he wants isn't right either.”   
  
Knock Out had frowned. “Maybe that's the only way to get the council to listen.” After all, Knock Out doesn't have much respect for the council either. They're the main reason he couldn't leave the apartment a lot before now. They're the reason his caretakers had to be so secretive, why Knock Out couldn't go out and play with the other younglings.   
  
Oh, Ratchet and Sunstreaker never told him in explicit terms all the reasons why. But Knock Out knows how to connect to the main terminals and do some research. He'd figured out why he was so different compared to everyone else. Why his caretakers are so careful with him and why they get fear in their optics with any mention of the council. Why he can't go to the public schools and instead learns his lessons at home.   
  
Knock Out has figured it all out on his own. That his caretakers were denied their application to the All Spark and resorted to something that could get them all offlined, Knock Out included. Actually, offlining would probably be the preferred outcome. Being turned into some experiment for the Hall of Mechanics is not on Knock Out's list of exciting opportunities.   
  
Hot Spot had shaken his helm at Knock Out. “You might be right, but that doesn't excuse the other innocent lives suffering for Megatron's ambition.”   
  
The conversation had ended then and there because they'd had to duck into a lower level to avoid a skirmish in the streets between the Decepticon raiders and members of Uraya's citizen guard. What remained of them after the bombing anyway. Hot Spot suspects that they aimed for all guard barracks first and foremost, and medical centers second.   
  
The steady thrum of powerful engines above derails Knock Out's thoughts and he huddles closer to Hot Spot, who suddenly stops in the shadows of a half-demolished building, pulling Knock Out behind him. His other hand grips a guard-issued blaster as he dares a sensor sweep, the feel of it tingling across Knock Out's circuits.   
  
Knock Out, peering around Hot Spot, can't see anymech in the street – Decepticon or civilian or Elite Guard, not that the Elite Guard would bother responding to an attack on a city as unimportant as Uraya. Right now, the High Council's too busy bickering in their high towers to worry about Uraya. Frag them.   
  
“Is it safe?” Knock Out asks, hoping his vocalizer didn't waver noticeably. He doesn't know how long they've been standing there, peering into an open roadway growing rapidly dimmer as Cybertron continues its somnolent, dying rotation.   
  
Hot Spot's optics are focused on the street, which seems empty. The loud rumble of engines have gone, but that doesn't mean they won't return. “No place is safe right now,” the soldier says darkly. “Come on, Knock Out.”   
  
He obeys without question, following Hot Spot closely as they dare step into the street, carefully glancing around. Only long enough to move from one covered position to another. Knock Out honestly doesn't want to know what would happen if one of the parties of Decepticon raiders found them. How far are they from Praxus? He doesn't know. Hot Spot had tight-bursted him coordinates and directions when they first slipped out of the apartment, heading for more secure territory, but Knock Out had never been further than a few blocks from his apartment before.   
  
Everything looks unfamiliar to him, even if half the buildings hadn't been razed and dead mechs cluttered the streetways.   
  
Cackling echoes over the noise of distant explosions. Hot Spot whirls around, drawing Knock Out behind him, even as his blaster comes up, barely aiming before he pulls the trigger. Laser fire punctuates the dim and Knock Out hears thrusters kick to life as a shadowy figure takes off from a nearby roof.   
  
“Not even close, groundpounder!” the voice taunts, and in a flicker of street lights, Knock Out sees evidence of gray and crimson plating, the low-blue burn of Seeker thrusters.   
  
The rumble of more engines becomes evident, though these are closer to the ground. Scrap! It can't be anything more than Decepticons, the single Seeker likely a scout of some kind.  
  
“Knock Out,” Hot Spot murmurs carefully, squeezing Knock Out's hand before releasing him. “I want you to run. Head for those buildings and keep going.”   
  
Knock Out stares up at his protector. “What? No! I can fight!” he argues stubbornly. “Sides taught me how. I can help you.”   
  
Hot Spot doesn't even look at him, his free hand twitching and pulling another weapon from his subspace, charging the energon axe with an audible whine. “That may be true, but you shouldn't have to. Do it, Knock Out.”   
  
The powerful engines are getting louder, some of them a bit rougher than others. No High Towers mechs here, only miners with a grudge and a plan.   
  
Seeker turbines are terrifyingly loud in the tense silence, causing Hot Spot to shift in front of Knock Out, frame sliding into a defensive posture. He's almost twice Knock Out's size, easily concealing Knock Out's presence.   
  
Streetlights flicker before burning brightly, temporarily offering some illumination to the increasingly dim roadway. Four mechs approaching on foot, the Seeker flying over them in tight ellipses, like a buzzbot circling its kill.   
  
“Ah, you're a big one,” the red-grey Seeker chortles above them. “Want to join the Decepticons?”   
  
Hot Spot makes a growling noise in his vocalizer. “I've better taste than that, Seeker.”   
  
Said Seeker laughs. “A poor choice.” He flips in the air, an elaborate twisting motion that Knock Out would be in awe over, on any other orn. “Take him.”   
  
Hot Spot doesn't wait for an invitation, firing upward at the red-grey Seeker. He sweeps an arm to the side, tapping Knock Out's helm. “Get out of here, bitlet!”   
  
Blaster rounds punctuate the air around them, Hot Spot turning to shield Knock Out.   
  
“No.” But he can't hide the trembling in his legs, or the cry of pain when a stray flash of laser fire scores his plating.   
  
“Go!” Hot Spot all but shoves him and Knock Out stumbles several steps away, watching as the soldier whirls and starts firing into the mass of four Decepticons, causing them to spread out.   
  
Knock Out hesitates but another round of blaster fire makes him startle, turn on his heel struts, and run toward the nearest building, the nearest shelter. If he stays, Hot Spot will focus on protecting him and not defending himself. He can't distract the soldier like that. He needs to be out of the way.   
  
“There's another one!” one of the Decepticons shouts, and Knock Out just knows that they are referring to him.   
  
He glances over his shoulder. One of the raiders has separated from the other four, heading straight for Knock Out, his green-black plating gleaming ominous. He's huge, at least two heads taller than Knock Out. What skills Sides has taught him will probably be of no use against the massive mech.   
  
Fear creeping over his processors, Knock Out lunges for the building, focused on getting away. He hears Hot Spot growl angrily, even as metal clashes with metal in an echoing screech. Laser fire scorches the ruined building just above Knock Out's helm. The Decepticon chasing him grunts and hits the ground, smoke rising from a hole in his ventral plating.   
  
Somewhere behind him, Hot Spot is grappling with the Seeker. Three other Decepticons are closing in fast. All Knock Out can do is run. He's still just a youngling. He can't do anything and there's no one here to help.   
  
He's on his own.   
  
o0o0o  
  
Soft keening floats to Knock Out's audials. He creeps out of the ruins of an abandoned electric plant and follows the unusual sound. This section of Protihex has been left derelict since it was first bombed over a half-orn ago. Nothing should be here but dead husks, the occasional Empty, and scavenging retrorats.   
  
Clutching his slapped-together Energon prod closely, Knock Out peers out the opening of the doorway, forever locked half-closed now that power to this sector of Protihex has been cut off. In the dim illumination provided by Moonbase One overhead, Knock Out can see a mech sitting out in the open, rocking back and forth as he clutches something in his arms.   
  
The mech's about Knock Out's size and probably a grounder, though all Knock Out can see of him is his back. Knock Out can't see any visible weapons, but that doesn't mean there aren't any. The scent of fresh-spilled energon is sharp in the air, nagging at Knock Out's chemoreceptors.   
  
He should just go. This won't be the first time Knock Out's seen one mech grieving for another and he knows it won't be the last. Besides, all that caterwauling is sure to attract the attention of one of the many plunderers creeping about Protihex's ruins. If the mech isn't on the verge of offlining now, he soon will be when the plunderers find him, seeking to offline him for the energon in his lines if nothing else.   
  
Yet, Knock Out doesn't move. Something keeps him from simply leaving. Another keening cry from the mech resonates inside of him.   
  
He's not sure it's a conscious decision that makes him creep out of his hiding place, daring to step into the openness of the street. He keeps one optic on the lookout for marauding mechs while the other focuses on the grieving mech. His pedesteps are barely audible, a precaution he's learned over the last several orns.   
  
Knock Out circles around the unknown blue and white mech, finally gaining view of the dark grey and red mech that he's clutching. They're sitting in a puddle of energon, and Knock Out can clearly see a trail of energon from wherever the two had come from. Obviously fleeing battle of some kind, until the red-grey one succumbed to his injuries here. A light scan informs him that there's no spark pulse from the red-grey mech. Knock Out isn't surprised.   
  
He takes another step, wondering how to announce his presence without getting himself shot, when the blue-white mech suddenly startles, helm shooting up. Within kliks, Knock Out has a blaster aimed straight at his chassis, the barely audible hum indicating a rifle with half a charge.   
  
Knock Out holds up both his hands, dropping his Energon prod. “Whoa,” he says, trying for soothing. “Don't shoot. I'm not here to hurt you.”   
  
Vivid golden optics cycle down, pain and fatigue evident in his expression. “What do you want?”   
  
He glances between the two mechs – one offlined and one getting there. “You shouldn't be out here. It's dangerous.”  
  
The stranger barks laughter, his other hand clutching the broken mech tighter. “It's dangerous everywhere. What should here matter?”   
  
He has a point. Still...   
  
“I have some energon,” Knock Out offers, still trying to look nonthreatening. “It's not much, barely palatable. But you look like you need it. And some repairs for that matter.”   
  
Those golden optics – so similar to his genitor's plating! – gleam brighter. “Are you a medic?”   
  
“You could say that.” All he knows is what Ratchet managed to teach him, what he's observed his creator doing over the vorns.   
  
Thoughts of his creator makes Knock Out's spark twist with pain. He misses both of his caretakers. Some orn he'll find them. Some orn, he'll actually make it to Praxus. Hopefully, they'll still be there. Hopefully, this stupid war hasn't killed them.   
  
The stranger barks out a laugh again, blaster lowering as his whole body shakes with the force of it, but there's no humor. Only bitterness. “That's our luck, isn't it? Finding a medic now. When it's too late.” The blaster hits the ground with a clatter. “Whatever. Do what you want, medic.”   
  
“Knock Out,” he corrects, daring to take a step closer.   
  
“Knock Out,” the stranger repeats, faceplates twisted with a bitter sneer. “You're a bit of a fool, aren't you, Knock Out?”   
  
He pauses mid-step at the insinuation. “Whatever does that mean?”   
  
“Only a fool would help a stranger in this pit-spawned war,” the mech retorts, static lacing his vocalizer. His optics flicker as he slumps a bit further, running low on energy and who knows what else. “So you, Knock Out, are a fool.”   
  
The stranger is right, of course, but Knock Out refuses to admit as much. “Who are you?” he asks instead, and bolstered by the repeated act of not being fired upon, approaches the strange mech.   
  
Closer now, he can see the scorch marks, the multiple blaster wounds, the seeping slash in his ventral plating, the sparking wires where one leg is useless. The mech hasn't left for safety because he can't, not because he won't.   
  
“Breakdown,” the mech replies and looks down at the greying corpse in his arms. “And this was Wildrider. My brother-in-bond.”   
  
Brother-in-bond. Like First Aid and Hot Spot. Knock Out's spark aches in remembrance of Hot Spot, whose fate Knock Out never learned. He never saw the mech again, and never made it to Praxus to find out what had happened to him.   
  
He should have stayed. That decision continues to haunt him.   
  
No wonder Breakdown's spark resonance feels so familiar. Knock Out's spent so much time around Hot Spot and his brothers that they've felt like his own family.   
  
He kneels next to Breakdown, unsure of where to even begin though getting him (and most likely his brother) out of the streets is a good start. “How did you end up out here?”   
  
“That's a long story.”   
  
“I've got the time.”   
  
o0o0o  
  
The mech reeks of rust and rot, wounds seeping tainted energon and the dull glaze in his optics speaking of a frame well on its way to becoming more Empty and less mech. His companion fares little better, lacking one arm and dragging a lame leg behind him. Two others hover in the background, in much better shape, their blue optics gleaming as they watch, as though eager to partake in a free show.   
  
The two nearer to him crowd a dizzy Knock Out in the dark of the alley, already clogged with refuse and broken buildings. Laughter and shouting echoes from the buildings to either side, the sound of brawling carrying to Knock Out's audials.   
  
“Get off me!” he snarls, whipping the Energon prod around, stabbing it intothe one-armed mech and watching with delight as his body jerks and writhes at the attack.   
  
“Ah, that wasn't very nice,” the rusty mech purrs static at him, making a clumsy grab for Knock Out's shoulder. Sense memory of that rusty hand groping his otherwise polished plating makes Knock Out shudder from helm to pede.   
  
He twists out of the way, kicking out at the rust bucket in a move that would make Sides proud, knocking the mech back and into a pile of abandoned scrap.   
  
The voyeurs think this is an opportunity to invite themselves to play. Knock Out whirls, striking at one with his Energon prod, and then growls when the second all but tackles him. Unwelcome servos paw at his plating as they slam into the alley wall, specks of rust flaking down on them. His attacker laughs in overcharged glee, fingers trying to work their way into gaps in Knock Out's newly acquired armor.   
  
Disgust crawls over his frame, tanks roiling with threat to purge and Knock Out reaches up, newly clawed fingers digging at the mech's optics. He howls in rage as Knock Out struggles, trying to shove the larger mech away from him. Fraggin' Breakdown better hurry up or Knock Out's going to have his aft for a new berth!  
  
Rusty mech returns, rage lighting his otherwise dim optics. “You're going to suffer for that,” he hisses.   
  
“Think again!” A fist appears out of nowhere, slamming into the rusty mech's faceplate and shattering it upon impact.   
  
Rusty topples backward, body jerking as sparks from his crushed helm light up the dark alleyway.   
  
Breakdown doesn't stop to appreciate his work, whirling and firing his blaster at point-blank range into one of the other mechs’ ventral plating. He goes down, smoke pouring from the hole in his chassis.   
  
Knock Out smirks and digs his fingers further into the optics, jerking them outward and bringing an optic with it, connectors sparking in the empty socket. Jerking a knee up, Knock Out drives the mech backward and whips an elbow across the mech's face, driving him down. A solid kick and the drifter is down.   
  
“What took you so long?” Knock Out snarls without a missed beat, stepping on the downed mech as he stalks to Breakdown and gives him a solid smack to the helm. “They scratched my plating!”   
  
Breakdown rolls his optics. “Looks fine to me.”   
  
Huffing, Knock Out turns his back on his companion and crouches over the unconscious mech. “Useless I swear it,” he mutters subvocally, and starts examining the mech's limbs, checking for imperfections or the onset of rust, like his other associates. Luckily, this mech seems to have fared fairly well.   
  
“Well, get over here and help me,” Knock Out snarls. “You're the one who needs a new arm.”   
  
o0o0o  
  
Megatron is more intimidating in person than Knock Out could have ever expected. The gladiator mech towers over all of his subordinates, even his second and third in command. It's clear that there are very few his physical equal, except perhaps for the infamous Prime.   
  
Knock Out stands straight, drawing from memories of his genitor, who would never bow or find himself afraid in Megatron's presence. Next to him, Breakdown is similarly proud, though awe and reluctance intermingle in his energy field.   
  
Crimson optics sweep over the pair of them, Megatron's hands clasped behind him as he paces back and forth, sizing up the two mechs. “You wish to join the Decepticons,” he says, more statement than question. “And what do you have to offer me?”   
  
Knock Out doesn't glance at Breakdown, knowing that confidence is only half of what Megatron expects of them. Confidence and loyalty, but not ambition as that would be stepping beyond the pale. “No war is won without a medic, my lord. I and my assistant would consider it an honor to serve you.”   
  
A gleam of approval appears in those scarlet optics. “I see. Medics tend to be soft-sparked Autobot fools. And yet you come here.” There is an unvoiced question in his statement.   
  
Knock Out tilts his chin, all of the reasons he's standing here instead of in Iacon crowding at his processors, dancing on the edge of his vocalizer. All the things that his caretakers feared. All the things he couldn't be under High Council rule. The past that his genitor had been forced to survive. The future he would never have. For all he knows, both his creator and his genitor are already gone.   
  
This is what Knock Out wants.  
  
o0o0o  
  
Ratchet cuts off the connection with his youngling and forces his cooling fans into operation, trying to dispel the heat working violently through his frame. His spark is spinning faster and faster within him, pain and guilt and sorrow nearly sending him into paroxysms.  
  
Shaking fingers uncouple the cord from Knock Out's cortical port, gently closing the panel on it as the cord respools itself.   
  
On the distant edge of his senses, he hears someone calling his name. A familiar energy field washes over him, ripe with worry.   
  
He tilts his helm, looks up at his partner, and it feels like Cybertron falling all over again. “It was his choice,” Ratchet says, static clogging his vocalizer. “He joined the Decepticons by choice.”   
  
Sunstreaker looks at him, optics burning with unnameable emotion, but if he plans to say something, Ratchet has no audials to hear him with. Exhaustion steals over his shuddering frame and darkness creeps over his optics. His HUD warns him of an impending shut down, a medically necessary recharge, and Sunstreaker's face is the last thing he sees.

 

****


	10. Chapter 10

Ratchet wakes to a painfully familiar noise, that of a stylus moving continuously over a datapad screen, the sound of a sketch in progress. Before he onlines his optics, Ratchet luxuriates in that sound, certain that Sunstreaker must be close to him. There's warm plating beneath his helm, the comforting weight of a hand on his chassis, and he can feel Sunstreaker's energy field entwined with his own. It lacks the fury and disappointment that Sunstreaker has carried for him lately, which helps to dispel the lingering grief still echoing in Ratchet's spark.   
  
He doesn't want to online completely. He doesn't want to face the truth which has so terrified him. He doesn't want to admit to anything, and yes, that is the cowardly way of dealing with matters. But Ratchet has never called himself anything but...  
  
The scratching of the stylus pauses. “I know you're online.”   
  
Reluctantly, Ratchet onlines his optics. Yellow plating is visible in the corner of his vision, and above him is the dull brown-grey of their base's ceiling. He checks his chronometer. Out for several hours it appears.   
  
“What did I miss?” Ratchet asks, refusing to move, if only to soak in Sunstreaker's proximity for a little while longer.   
  
“Knock Out's still in medical recharge and Jazz is upstairs, arguing with some squishy named Fowler,” Sunstreaker answers, the stylus once again moving over the datapad's screen. “He's torqued that you didn't inform him we were arriving.”   
  
Ratchet rolls his optics, executing a sigh. “On my ever-growing list of things to do, remembering to contact Agent Fowler was pretty low in priority.” He checks his systems – fully functioning, though he could do with a cube of energon and some more recharge. “But I had better mollify him or they will cut off what little supplies they do give us.”   
  
Before he can so much as move, however, Sunstreaker's free hand plants itself on his chestplate and pushes him down. “Stay. Jazz can handle the fleshling.”   
  
“That's not the way things work.”   
  
“I don't give a frag.” Sunstreaker gives him another not-subtle push and then removes his hand, only to return moments later with an energon cube, gleaming pale blue. “Take it.”   
  
Ratchet cycles his optics down. “Sunstreaker--”  
  
The energon cube gets shoved toward him insistently. “You very nearly put yourself in stasis,” Sunstreaker says sharply, and Ratchet doesn't miss the note of concern in his energy field. “Right now, your decision making skills are revoked.” There's anger, too. At himself? At Ratchet?   
  
With Sunstreaker, it's always so hard to tell.   
  
Grudgingly, Ratchet takes the cube and Sunstreaker shifts beneath him, making it easier for him to drink without having to actually sit up. The energon is low-grade, poorly refined, but better than nothing. Ratchet takes a sip, and then downs the whole thing, all the while under his partner's watchful optic.   
  
“Satisfied?” he grunts, shaking the empty cube at Sunstreaker before throwing it over his shoulder.   
  
Sunstreaker stares at him. “Marginally.” He sets his stylus and datapad aside, the screen going dark before Ratchet can get a glimpse of the sketch. “Ready to tell me what happened?”  
  
Unwilling to hold his partner's gaze, Ratchet turns his helm away, and then sits up, fending off Sunstreaker's hand as the yellow mech tries to pin him down again. He's not an invalid. He's a medic for Primus' sake. He knows his own limits.   
  
Sure, his stabilization gyros are spinning a bit out of sync right now, but they'll settle on their own. More lying around isn't going to help speed his recovery along.   
  
“What do you think happened?” Ratchet asks, feeling fatigue settle into every joint, every circuit, every slaggin' gear. He feels aged, old, and not just because of this Primus-damned war. “For all intents and purposes, our youngling willingly joined the Decepticons. That's what I found out. What more can I say?”   
  
He huffs and forces himself to his feet, optics scanning the room. Knock Out's been carefully laid out nearby, still in medically-induced recharge, looking peaceful and battle-scarred and so fragged unfamiliar. That resonating ache begins behind his chestplate again and Ratchet clutches at the windshields on his frame.   
  
Echoes of Knock Out's memories reverberate through Ratchet's own memory core. Seeing things from the optics of his youngling is something he doesn't think he'll ever forget. It's too raw, too close to him.   
  
Sunstreaker climbs to his feet, much more graceful than Ratchet's scrabble and lacking the embarrassing squeak of unoiled gears. “You can tell me what to do next.”   
  
His shoulders slump with a squealing grind of stripped mechanisms. “My best guess? Bring him out of recharge and talk to him.” Ratchet wipes his faceplates with his hand, hating himself for not having the answers. “Though I fear he won't tell us anything I don't already know.”   
  
Silence settles in the room,until Sunstreaker moves. “Okay then,” he says, turning toward their youngling. “We'll wake him.”   
  
Ratchet gapes, actually gapes, at his partner. “Now?”   
  
“What better time?” Sunstreaker asks with a dismissive flick of a shoulder panel. “Grab me that crate, will you?”   
  
He knows he should protest. That they should probably wait for Jazz, or technically ask him first, but Ratchet does neither. Instead, he grabs the crate Sunstreaker indicated and drags it toward his partner, correctly guessing his intent. Carefully, they perch Knock Out on top of it, sitting up so that he has some semblance of dignity.   
  
And then Sunstreaker pulls cuffs out his subspace. Ratchet gives him an incredulous look.   
  
“You're the one who said he was a Decepticon now,” Sunstreaker says, tone bland but the whorls of disquiet in his energy field belying his calm. “And if he's spent even half a vorn on the Nemesis, he'll online swinging.”   
  
Ratchet feels himself wilting, metaphorically sinking toward the floor. “Or maybe not. He has an... associate.”   
  
Sunstreaker pauses in the midst of cuffing their youngling’s hands together. “Partner?”   
  
“I didn't dig deep enough to find out,” Ratchet admits. Part of him hadn't wanted to, hoping that at least some things Knock Out could keep private. His relationship with Breakdown, whatever it construed, is best kept a mystery. That they are friends (acquaintances? Do Decepticons have friends?) is enough knowledge for Ratchet; he fears to know anything more.   
  
Sunstreaker gives him a level look before returning his attention to Knock Out, the cuffs sliding shut with an audible snap. “Wake him up.”   
  
He really should protest. Except that Ratchet doesn't. He obediently – and when did he allow Sunstreaker to take charge of this? When had he willingly surrendered that element of command? – connects to his youngling using the medical access and initiates Knock Out's bootup sequence. There will be a half-minute delay, which allows him enough time to close the access, spool up the cable, and shift so that he's standing in front of Knock Out.   
  
Sunstreaker remains behind Knock Out, his hands firmly planted on red-plated shoulders. It's almost unfair, Ratchet thinks, that he is the one forced to look their youngling in the optic, while Sunstreaker doesn't have to see those now-red optics brighten into wakefulness.  
  
It takes a klik, but Knock Out's attention immediately centers on Ratchet, rather than the mech on his side. If there is a shred of familial recognition in that glance, Ratchet will call himself a Dinobot and change his processors accordingly.   
  
“Well if it isn't Optimus Prime's medic,” Knock Out drawls, tone lazy despite his optics swiveling in and out as they try to focus. “The so-called doctor of doom.”  
  
Ratchet's backstrut straightens. “Scrap it, Knock Out. You know who I am. Just as I know who you are.”   
  
“Of course you do.” He lifts his shoulders experimentally, twitching under Sunstreaker's hold. “However, I might need a little... reminder.”   
  
Plating rattles audibly and Ratchet tosses Sunstreaker a cautionary look. Knock Out's belligerence is about apprehension as much as it is about Knock Out being Knock Out. One of the traits he no doubt picked up from his genitor.   
  
\-- _Easy_ ,-- Ratchet tight beams to his partner. -- _He's trying to get a reaction. He's trying to make us hurt._ \--  
  
Sunstreaker's fingers tap on Knock Out's plating, a light staccato. -- _Why_?--  
  
For that, Ratchet has no answer.   
  
However, if that is the game Knock Out wishes to play, then Ratchet will oblige for now, if only to promote getting answers as opposed to antagonizing his youngling further. It's been eons since he last saw Knock Out. Much has changed, for all of them. Ratchet dare not take anything for granted anymore, not even their carrier's bond.   
  
“I am Prime's medic,” Ratchet answers, using the same identification Megatron had given back in the mines. “My designation is Ratchet. Behind you is Sunstreaker. I'm certain I don't need to tell you our relation.”   
  
“Oh. I can guess.” Knock Out's lip plates curl up in a sly smirk that is at once familiar and foreign. “Tell me, carrier, how long did it take you to realize who I was?”   
  
Ratchet forces a ventilation, anything to calm the sudden jitters in his limbs. “We have all changed through the vorns. None of us resemble our original forms.” Least of all Knock Out, but Ratchet suspects stating such a thing will do him little good.   
  
“And yet our sparks are the same.”   
  
Behind Knock Out, Sunstreaker shifts, capturing Ratchet's attention as the yellow mech meets Ratchet's optics. “Are they?” Sunstreaker asks, his tone laced with pain.   
  
“Of course they are,” Ratchet replies, a touch confused. “Our sparks are integral. Nothing can change them. They can't--”  
  
A dark, rolling chuckle interrupts Ratchet and he startles, looking at his youngling. “You're as oblivious as ever, carrier. He's not referring to the chemical composition of a spark, but the behavioral aspects of it.” Knock Out tilts his helm, unable to look at Sunstreaker directly but speaking to him nonetheless. “Am I right?”   
  
Sunstreaker's shoulders hunch; Ratchet can't remember the last time he's seen the yellow mech so cowed, so utterly still. “Did you honestly join the Decepticons?” His words ache to be proven wrong, for Ratchet to have been wrong.   
  
Part of Ratchet wishes he could beg the universe of the same thing.   
  
Knock Out twitches, distaste reflecting in his expression as his battle armor clamps down to his frame defensively. “Ask your partner. I'm sure he's already checked all possibilities. Processor. Memory core. Spark integrity. And what did you find, medic?”   
  
“Nothing.” Static laces his answer and Ratchet's frame feels too large for his spark, that he's not getting enough power and the walls are coming down, one by one.   
  
Knock Out lifts his chin, as though challenging him. Or mocking, perhaps. “What? No reprogramming? No processor wipes? No altered memories?”   
  
Is it possible to feel guilt and shame and fear and grief all at once? Can such conflicting emotions truly exist all at once within one's spark?   
  
“No,” Ratchet replies. “You know I would have found nothing.”  
  
“I do.” The words are triumphant, his tone less so.   
  
Knock Out pauses, optics going a shade dim, taking on the look Ratchet knows all too well. The look of a mech accessing his own systems, going much deeper than the basic layout available in a HUD. Knock Out is a medic. No doubt he is tracing the path Ratchet had taken, following each search step by step until--  
  
Yes, Knock Out sees it now. His optics brighten with curiosity. “And what's this? A cortical connection to my memory banks? You were desperate.”   
  
The guilt rises up again, threatening to pour out through his energy field, swallow the entirety of the room in Ratchet's self-shame. But through it all, fights the despair. “Can you imagine how it felt to finally find my missing youngling, only to discover he's become the enemy?”   
  
His words have the opposite effect he intended. Rather than garnering sympathy in Knock Out, appealing to their caretaker bond, Ratchet invokes a spark-stopping rage. Knock Out's Decepticon-red optics spiral wider, every limb going rigid.   
  
“Or to discover your genitors are too busy fighting the council's war to search for their missing brat?” he all but spits at Ratchet, the end of his statement accompanied by a squawking noise that can only reflect his utter fury.   
  
Ratchet hesitates in the wake of that vehemence, but where he loses his words, Sunstreaker finds his. He abruptly releases Knock Out's shoulders and circles around their youngling so that they can finally see each other optic to optic, similar face to similar face. Recognition blooms inside Ratchet now, finding it easier to see his youngling in this unfamiliar frame.   
  
By Primus, Ratchet remembers designing Knock Out's protoform to resemble Sunstreaker's more as Sunstreaker is the more attractive of the two of them. And after all these vorns, rather than go for a complete overhaul, a frame transfer, Knock Out had opted to keep that design and simply build around it. What does it mean? What does it say?   
  
Sunstreaker, however, is all but vibrating with rage, battle systems coming online with a high-pitched hum that Ratchet knows to recognize. Not because he sees Knock Out as a threat, an enemy, but because Sunstreaker doesn't know how else to deal with those volatile emotions. He has always needed the gladiator rings and now, he has the war.   
  
But here, in this room, there is no mech to shoot. Nowhere to aim the violence of his own despair.   
  
“Vorns,” Sunstreaker snaps at Knock Out, beyond sentences, each word carefully spoken in Cybertronian, with all its many layered glyphs and emotions. “Battlefields. Broken cities. Crowded clinics. Databases. Neutral colonies. Vorns!” A shudder rakes him from helm to pedes, plating alternating between clamping and flaring. “I never stopped. _Never_.”  
  
Vents heaving, struggling to cool overheated circuits, Sunstreaker shakes his helm. He steps forward, and Ratchet intervenes, gently laying a hand on Sunstreaker's shoulder. He doesn't speak, just washes calm through his energy field, lets it seep into Sunstreaker's field. When they intermingle, Ratchet can feel the extent of Sunstreaker's pain, which matches Ratchet's own, beat for beat.   
  
“Sunstreaker,” he says softly, but adds nothing more.   
  
It hurts. There is no denying the pain that grips his spark, that makes him wonder what he could have possibly done to make Primus hate him so. But Sunstreaker yelling isn't going to help anything.   
  
Knock Out has had vorns to convince himself of this truth. No matter what Ratchet and Sunstreaker tell him, nothing will change Knock Out's opinion. He's as stubborn as his genitor and their words will not sway him.   
  
Sunstreaker jerks out from under Ratchet's hand, whirling away from both he and Knock Out, stalking across the concrete floor. His blades slide in and out of their sheaths as he struggles to control his battle systems, energy field awhirl with conflicting emotions.   
  
Ratchet forces a few ventilation cycles, if only to regain his own composure. He doesn't know what well of equanimity he manages to draw from, but it enables him to look at his youngling without being swallowed in his grief. He'll have all the time in the world to collapse later; right now, he has to hold himself together.   
  
“Is that why you joined the Decepticons?”   
  
Knock Out snorts, though his optics slide uneasily to a pacing Sunstreaker before shifting back to Ratchet. “Don't flatter yourself. Besides, didn't you see everything you want to know already?”   
  
“You are aware of the dangers of a cortical connection,” Ratchet replies, tapping the side of his helm with a finger. “It would have taken me days – weeks even – to view everything. Time I didn't have.”   
  
Those Decepticon red optics shift away and Knock Out twitches on the crate, as though testing the strength of the cuffs. “At least I get to keep some mystery.”   
  
Behind them, there is a loud, crackling thud. Ratchet winces, not needing to look to know that Sunstreaker has just punched a gouge in the wall. The door to the Safe slides open and Sunstreaker is gone, taking the swirl of negative emotion with him.   
  
The ensuing silence feels as though it presses all around Ratchet. He looks at Knock Out, feeling irredeemably helpless. “Do you despise us so much?”   
  
Knock Out's optics swivel back toward him with a speed that surprises even Ratchet. “Hate has never been part of the equation.” His tone is flat, emotionless. “Keep me here if you want, but I'll never join the Autobots.”   
  
Aching, Ratchet dares to step closer, their family bond burning bright with the increase in proximity. Where it had once been a vague echo, a ghost of the past that Ratchet had always feared meant his offspring had been offlined, the bond is now gently pulsing at him, urging him to renew it.   
  
What can he say to such a statement? There's finality in Knock Out's energy field. Certainty in his tone. Where will words matter?   
  
Ratchet's plating clamps close to his frame, his shoulders slumping. “I'm sorry,” he says, vocalizer emitting static. There's nothing else he can say. Datapads of apologies aren't going to change the past.   
  
He has failed Knock Out in every way that matters.   
  
“Huh. Seems like I missed th' party.”  
  
The voice is unexpected, but still, Ratchet doesn't startle. He feels too numb for that reaction. Instead he half-turns, keeping one optic on Knock Out as he glances at the entrance to the Safe.   
  
“Jazz.”   
  
Said mech strolls inside, Sunstreaker on his heels. “Couldn't wait ta interrogate him, could ya?” Jazz asks, and there's a hint of chastisement in his tone.   
  
Knock Out laughs. “If this is what the Autobots call an interrogation, I'm in for a vacation.”   
  
“I wouldn't be so sure of that.” Jazz comes to a halt next to Ratchet, looking down at the cuffed mech with his hands planted on his hips. “Lotta attitude with nothing to show fer it, aren't ya?”   
  
Knock Out's optics swivel down in obvious offense. “Why don't you remove the cuffs and we'll find out?”   
  
“Oh, I'd hate ta ruin such a pretty paint job,” Jazz all but purrs. “Dents are unbecomin', don't ya think?”   
  
A shudder visibly races across Knock Out's frame. “A threat?”   
  
“Somethin' like that.” Jazz reaches up, taps a finger on his chin. “'Course all I want is some answers. Then I'll see what I can 'bout settin' ya free.”   
  
Sunstreaker shifts noticeably behind them. “Jazz,” he hisses pointedly.   
  
Knock Out glances past both of them, a flicker of recognition toward Sunstreaker. “Hmm. I don't think my genitor likes that plan.”   
  
“Lucky fer ya, it's not his choice to make.”   
  
Lipplates curling upward, Knock Out gives Jazz a coy look. “What do you want to know?”   
  
“Optimus.”   
  
“You mean Orion, right?” Knock Out barks a laugh. “Lord Megatron's new berthwarmer?”   
  
Ratchet goes utterly still and though it's scientifically impossible, he swears that the temperature in the room drops by several degrees. He can all but hear Sunstreaker bristling at the implied insult. Of them, only Jazz keeps his outward calm, but Ratchet knows Jazz too well. The saboteur is boiling on the inside.   
  
He ignores the incendiary remark with natural grace. “Is he a prisoner?”   
  
Knock Out stares at him. “You really have no clue, do you?” He tilts his chin upward, looking smug. “Orion is Megatron's right hand mech, and... other things, much to Airachnid's disappointment.”   
  
Ratchet doesn't need Knock Out to elaborate. Megatron must be full of glee (or whatever constitutes it for Megatron) to have another chance to make Orion Pax his. And to conquer Optimus Prime all in the same instance.   
  
Jazz remains unflappable. “Have any other Decepticons come to Earth?”   
  
“Now why would I tell you something like that? Maybe it's a surprise.”   
  
“What is Megatron planning?”   
  
“Do I look like somemech who knows that?”   
  
“Where's th' Nemesis?”   
  
“Oh, I'm sure it's around here somewhere.”   
  
Knock Out remains unrepentant; Jazz, unflappable. He stares at the Decepticon with nothing short of thinly disguised disappointment.   
  
“You're not going to change sides, are you?” Jazz asks, and his quiet query breaks the cadence of rapid-fire interrogation he'd used moments prior.   
  
“No.” There is no hesitation in Knock Out's denial.   
  
“All right then.” Jazz turns away from the bound mech, tilting his helm in such a way that indicates he's accessing his comms. -- _Bluestreak, come down to the Safe, please_ ,-- he says over the main line, not bothering to make it a private contact.   
  
Ratchet frowns. “Jazz?” Just what has the saboteur decided in that crafty processor of his? There are times Jazz can be so unreadable and now appears to be one of them.   
  
Jazz moves toward the door, crooking a finger over his shoulder at the medic. “Come on, Ratch. You, too, Sunny.”   
  
Glancing at his partner, Ratchet's pedes feel firmly rooted to the floor. The idea of leaving Knock Out now that he's right there doesn't settle well in his spark. And Sunstreaker seems to have the same hesitation.   
  
“But--”  
  
“You're already on thin ice, Sunshine,” Jazz says shortly, his tone full of warning and impatience. “Don't push it.”   
  
The door to the Safe opens with a creak of rusty hinges, Bluestreak poking his helm through the crack. “You rang?”   
  
Jazz plants both hands on his hips, glancing at his bonded appraisingly. “That was fast.”   
  
“I was curious so I was waiting just down the hall.” He shrugs, unrepentant, as he steps further into the room. “I didn't hear anything though. Except what you wanted me to hear. Which isn't much. You're so stubborn sometimes. I can keep a secret you know. Better than Bulkhead at any rate.” He pauses, tilts a bit to the left, catching sight of the bound mech on the crate. “Are you sure that's Knock Out? Because he looks different. Like noticeably different.”   
  
Knock Out sneers. “And you haven't changed one bit.”   
  
“It's part of my charm,” Bluestreak replies sweetly, a wide grin on his faceplate. Yes, Bluestreak is perhaps the best choice of guard.   
  
Jazz claps his bonded on the shoulder, squeezing familiarly. “You two go ahead and get reacquainted. We adults have business to discuss.”   
  
Bluestreak gives him a thumbs up, shuttering one optic in semblance of a wink. “Leave the brat to me, boss.”   
  
“Brat?” Knock Out repeats, sounding offended. The crate which serves as his seat creaks ominously.   
  
“That's what I said,” Bluestreak replies, door wings lifting and settling in a gesture Ratchet has learned to read as amusement.   
  
Jazz snickers and pushes open the door, gesturing for both Ratchet and Sunstreaker to precede him. “Come on, you two. You're with me.”   
  
It might as well be an order. They've no choice but to leave Knock Out behind, dread building within them.   
  
It takes all Ratchet has within him not to look over his shoulder at his unrepentant youngling.

 

****


	11. Chapter 11

“It seems to me we have two choices,” Jazz announces as he paces back and forth in the limited space of Ratchet's “medbay.”   
  
Sunstreaker snorts, arms folded across his chestplate. “No choice about it. The Decepticons are not getting my youngling back!”   
  
“It's not that simple, Sunstreaker,” Ratchet says, feeling as though fatigue has taken over his struts. “He doesn't want to stay with us.”   
  
His partner whirled toward him, blue optics burning bright with anger. “Letting him return is not an option.”   
  
“Neither is imprisoning him indefinitely,” Jazz points out logically. “It's not feasible and it's borderline cruel.”   
  
“He's not a Decepticon!” Sunstreaker snarls as he slashes a hand through the air, plating vibrating with the force of his emotion. Ratchet hears the distinct whine of battle systems surging to life.   
  
This could go very badly.   
  
“He is,” Ratchet says, knowing the truth isn't easy but it must be dealt with, as little as he wants to admit it himself. “It's the choice he made and we have to face that.”   
  
Sunstreaker's fingers curl into fists, blades peeking from their sheaths. “He should be with us, not those monsters!”   
  
Ratchet straightens, looking his partner in the optic. “Are you suggesting we trap him here? Reprogram him if necessary?”   
  
“He knows too much to let him wander free,” Jazz says, from somewhere in the background. He's stopped his incessant pacing, at least, and now appears to be paying the bickering partners close attention.   
  
Ratchet shakes his head. “Knock Out doesn't know anything Megatron won't realize on his own soon enough. And Knock Out has a vested interest in not revealing his relationship to us. Megatron will see it as either a weakness or a betrayal and neither bodes well for Knock Out's continued functioning.”   
  
“You'd let him go?” Jazz asks softly.   
  
“It's not a matter of letting,” Ratchet replies, though it feels like betraying his very spark to say so. “I don't see where we have any other choice.”   
  
“I do,” Sunstreaker insists, trying to push himself between the medic and their commanding officer. “We can't send him back.”   
  
“We can't keep him either!” Ratchet hisses, grabbing Sunstreaker and forcing his partner to face him, keeping him there by clamping both hands down on massive, well-armored shoulders. “He's no longer ours!”   
  
He can feel the trembling beneath his hands, see the war in Sunstreaker's optics. That is their youngling, a member of their family, what remains of their family after this scrapping war and the uninhabitable nature of Cybertron. Ratchet understands, he truly does. This is a fragged up situation and there's no clear answer for either of them.   
  
He wants Knock Out back more than anything. He wants some semblance of their former life to be true again. But Ratchet knows that his desires are only a pipe dream. Knock Out has made his choice, and they cannot change his decision for him. It would be wrong, it would make them no better than Decepticons, and it hurts.   
  
By Primus does it hurt!   
  
But what other choice do they have?   
  
The sound of the medbay door whooshing open and shut attracts Ratchet's attention, distracting him from the turbulent silence prevalent in the close quarters. He glances at the door, but no one has entered, which means Jazz has gone.   
  
\-- _Jazz_?--  
  
The saboteur responds to the tightly beamed comm. -- _You two figure things out first. Then we'll talk_ ,-- he says, and cuts off the comm before Ratchet can form a response either way.   
  
Sunstreaker slumps under Ratchet's hands. “Frag you both,” he mutters, to Ratchet's surprise.   
  
“Jazz--”  
  
“Not him,” Sunstreaker interrupts without any preamble. “Sideswipe. He agrees with you. The slagger.”   
  
“Oh.” It does him little good to hide his surprise. That Sideswipe is listening is no great shock, but that he agrees with Ratchet is.   
  
Sunstreaker vibrates with the weight of his sorrow, though the edge of violence that he'd been carrying earlier had all but vanished. “Both of you are traitors.”   
  
“That's not fair, Sunstreaker.”   
  
“Nothing about this is, Ratchet,” he retorts and reaches up, curling his fingers around Ratchet's wrists, gently detaching his hold on yellow armor. “But I guess I should have seen this coming.”   
  
Confusion – and a heady dose of trepidation – makes Ratchet's spark quiver. “What is that supposed to mean?”   
  
“It means that several millennia is a long time. Even for we Cybertronians,” Sunstreaker replies darkly, and lets go of his hold on Ratchet's wrist, taking a distancing step away. His optics are dim, energy field tightly contained.   
  
Ratchet's hands fall limply to his side; he can't seem to find the wherewithal to lift them again. “I don't—”  
  
“We change, Ratchet. Mechs change,” Sunstreaker replies, cutting him off before he can so much as vocalize his protests. He turns as though to leave, one hand on the door panel, before glancing over his shoulder, optics meeting Ratchet's own. “And sometimes, they don't.”   
  
The door opens and closes with a defining shunt, with Sunstreaker on the other side and Ratchet once again standing alone in his med bay.   
  
What... what just happened here?   
  
Did Sunstreaker just end things? After all these millennia, after everything they've been through, all the choices they've made? Did he just walk out the door?   
  
Ratchet reaches behind him, glad that there's a berth to provide some sort of stable ground, his optics locked on the closed door. A light sensor sweep beyond the thick metal indicates Sunstreaker's signature getting further away, no doubt heading to either the quarters he shares with Sideswipe, or perhaps even further, back to the common room or patrol. Maybe he's gone downstairs to talk more with their errant youngling.   
  
Either way, he's not here. He's not attempting to talk with Ratchet, figure out what they – as partners – should do next.   
  
Ratchet will admit that he's old. Not quite as ancient and creaky as Ironhide or, Primus forbid, Kup, but he's not a young mech. Even by the time he met Sunstreaker, he could no longer be considered a young mech. In his lifetime, he's had relationships, most of them meaningless and easily forgotten. He played the game in his youth and has had his share of break ups – as the humans would call them – most of them involving a lot of yelling, thrown items, and hurt sparks.   
  
But none of those mechs or femmes had gotten to him half as much as Sunstreaker had. None of them ever had Ratchet thinking permanent thoughts. None of them made his spark twist with as much pain as it did pleasure.   
  
This is... strange. So strange that Ratchet doesn't know what to feel. A bit numb, a bit bitter. Dull, like he can't focus, just staring at the closed door. Confused, processor caught in some kind of figure-eight shaped loop.   
  
This is all his fault. He has only himself to blame. What has he given Sunstreaker to cling to? What promises has he offered?   
  
Nothing. In his cowardice, he hadn't given the comfort of words or actions, merely letting them exist in some half-committed relationship where he was willing to do everything except bond. They broke Cybertronian law to create a sparkling together and Ratchet still couldn't give Sunstreaker the bond he wanted.   
  
Because he's a coward.   
  
It's too late. Maybe it was too late before they went their separate ways all those vorns ago, back on Cybertron when Ratchet joined the Prime's mission and Sunstreaker went with Jazz's team. Maybe it was too late when the time they had spent searching for their lost youngling had produced no results. Maybe that was a wedge no amount of affection can remove.   
  
The door slides open with a definitive sound and Ratchet's head jerks up, gaze focusing on it with too much hope. But it isn't the twin he hoped he would see.   
  
“Why won't you bond with him?” Sideswipe asks, leaning against the frame and folding his arms over his chestplate. He doesn't bother with preamble. He doesn't have to. His bond with Sunstreaker ensures that he knows scrap near everything.   
  
Ratchet straightens, a scowl twisting his mouth. “Knock next time,” he demands, trying for a composure he doesn't have.   
  
Sideswipe, however, locks his backstrut and meets Ratchet's scowl as though he hasn't a fear in Cybertron. “You didn't answer my question.” This time, it seems, he is choosing to access his infernal persistence.   
  
Bristling, Ratchet twists away from Sideswipe, hunting the floor for the laser cutter he'd carelessly tossed there earlier. “He never asked.”   
  
“That's a load of slag.” Sideswipe manages an impressive approximation of a snort. “You've been partners longer than this war, Ratchet. And I know that he's asked. So why?”   
  
Finding the laser cutter half-tucked under a berth, Ratchet kneels to drag it out and then stands back up. He eyes the tool in his hand as though it holds all the answers he's ever needed.   
  
“You wouldn't understand.” How pathetic is he, that he's fallen onto such trite arguments? This is how low Ratchet has fallen indeed.   
  
Sideswipe tilts his helm. “Thus the asking.”   
  
Ratchet doesn't answer. To be honest, he doesn't know if he can properly verbalize all of the justifications he's ever given to himself. In the end it all boils down to one explanation: his own cowardice. Like the Pit he's going to admit that to Sideswipe.   
  
Besides, even if he did, it wouldn't make a difference. If there is anyone left alive amongst the Cybertronians who is more stubborn than Ratchet, it is Sunstreaker. Once he has come to a decision, nothing will make him change it.   
  
His shoulders slump, vents stuttering in their usual rhythm. The strange sensation of numbness sweeps over him again.   
  
No, he supposes, it wouldn't make a difference at all. This is the end.   
  
A metallic clank signifies Sideswipe switching positions, straightening from his lean against the door frame and turning back toward the door. His energy field is straining outward, thin tendrils of disappointment, fatigue, and sadness.   
  
“Never mind,” Sideswipe says, shaking his helm. “Sunny doesn't need to bond with someone like you anyway. He deserves better.”   
  
Anger bubbles up within Ratchet, lancing through his energy field. He slams down the laser cutter with an audial-wincing crumple of delicate metal. “What in the Pit is that supposed to mean?” he asks the wall, refusing to turn and look and Sideswipe.   
  
The red twin doesn't leave. “You know exactly what I meant, Ratch. I don't know when ya got like this. Honestly, between you and Sunny, I can't tell who's more broken. It's like Primus made you for each other.”   
  
Ratchet snorts, something inside him quivering at Sideswipe's words. “It's not us. It's this never-ending war.”   
  
“You two had problems before the war and you know it.” Sideswipe ventilates noisily, approximating a huff of aggravation. “You hid it well, but Sunny never was as good at blocking me as I could block him.”   
  
Without knowing how to respond to that, Ratchet opts for silence. Unfortunately, Sideswipe seems to think this permission to continue on his own. He moves off the door frame, the sound of his footsteps easily identifying his location, along with his presence on Ratchet's ever-active proximity sensors.   
  
Before Ratchet can think of escaping or formulating some kind of plan or wondering why he's having this conversation with Sideswipe, the red twin is there, standing right in front of him, a mulish set to his square jaw.   
  
“Look, Ratch,” he says, a tone of voice that all but demands the medic to listen to him and Ratchet feels strangely compelled to offer Sideswipe his full attention. “Sunny's my other half and I love him more than anything in the universe. But I'm not blind. He's arrogant and snide and just this side of psychotic.”   
  
Ratchet feels his supra-orbital plating rise at this frank assessment of Sideswipe's own twin's behavior. Is it supposed to be an encouragement?   
  
“But,” Sideswipe adds, and as his tone gentles, something in his faceplates also softening. His energy field flutters with affection. “He also feels more than any mech I've ever met. Even as soft-sparked as First Aid is. So when I say Sunny loves you, I don't think you could ever grasp half the depth of what I mean.”   
  
Love. Love, he says.   
  
What kind of impossible romantic notion is that?   
  
Ratchet's spark gives a clenching feeling within his chestplate, as though his frame is two sizes too small. “And yet, he's the one who walked away.”   
  
“You might as well have!” Sideswipe's argument echoes in the half-empty medbay and he pulls back, as though drawing on a well of patience, dialing his vocalizer back down. “How many vorns and you never asked? And how many times does Sunny have to hear other mechs say you wouldn't bond a half-sparked mech like him anyway before he starts to believe it?”  
  
“That's not true and you know it!”   
  
“I do,” Sideswipe concedes. “But I'm not the one who needs convincing.”   
  
If silence carried a weight, Ratchet can feel it now on his shoulders. The weight of Sideswipe's stare, the debilitating press of Ratchet's own guilt, pushing him downward, trying to drag him through the concrete floor and into Earth's Unicron-infected core.   
  
Sideswipe sighs, a noise of resignation, and holds up his hands, backing away. “Look. If you'd be happier like this, then by all means, ignore me. But if you love him like I think you do, then do what's right.”   
  
“I think we're beyond that now,” Ratchet replies quietly.   
  
“You're wrong.”   
  
Sideswipe leaves, his parting words seeming to echo all around Ratchet. He slumps back against one of the med berths, feeling the eons in his joints and limbs. Feeling it in the heaviness of his spark.   
  
He's too old for this.   
  
He's too old for thoughts of forever. He's too battle-scarred to think of ridiculous notions like love. The mechs he's known as family are gone. Most of the mechs and femmes he fought beside over the millennia are dead. Cybertron's gone, little more than a dead husk. All Ratchet has left is this rag tag group of Autobots and whoever manages to find them on this mudball planet in this backwater galaxy here on the distant edge of space.   
  
What's it matter now?   
  
They're all fighting for the sake of fighting, really. Fighting for energun. Over old and half-forgotten grievances. Desperate to return to a planet that's lifeless, never to be restored at this rate. Population dwindling with each passing vorn.   
  
His youngling's a Decepticon! That's what Ratchet's world has come to. And now, the only mech he ever dared consider a bond with has decided he's no longer worth the trouble.   
  
Ratchet can't blame him.   
  
This war makes uncertainty of everything. No wonder Sunstreaker wants a little something to cling to, something that's indisputable.   
  
Ratchet must admit wanting the same thing for himself. It would be a lie if he said he didn't miss Sunstreaker. He's spent every free second of the last several millennia thinking about his partner. Thinking about his family. Sideswipe and First Aid. His apprentice's brothers. Jazz and Bluestreak and Prowl. His missing youngling.   
  
By Primus! Every moment he wasn't locked in some life-or-death battle or struggling to keep another one of the Autobots from deactivating, Ratchet had wished for nothing more than Sunstreaker at his side. And he didn't even have the comfort of the bond to offer him any consolation that his partner wasn't deactivated or disabled.   
  
Sunstreaker is here now. Here within touching distance, except nothing is the same anymore. Ratchet's different. Sunstreaker's different. Maybe too different. Their youngling has become a Decepticon and nothing's right in Ratchet's world.   
  
Nothing's been right since fragging Megatron bombed Uraya.   
  
Sighing, Ratchet shakes his helm and glares mutely at the floor. Just what in the Pit is he supposed to do?

 

****


	12. Chapter 12

In the end, the decision is Jazz's to make. He takes Ratchet's and Sunstreaker's opinions into account but the fact remains they have neither the facilities nor the mechpower to hold a prisoner indefinitely. They could, in theory, keep Knock Out locked in an indefinite stasis, but it would be kinder to kill him.   
  
Ratchet protests very strongly to the idea of offlining his younging. He will consent to abiding by Knock Out's decision and allowing him to return to the Decepticons. But he will fight blaster and sawblade before he'll allow the Autobots to callously offline his youngling. In this, he agrees with Sunstreaker.   
  
Three sleepless solar cycles after they'd first taken Knock Out from the Decepticons, Jazz agrees to release him. Of course, some of the Autobots protest this. It doesn't seem a wise decision, to restore an enemy back to his own faction, increasing the number of mechs they'll face across the battlefield. Especially since Knock Out is a medic.   
  
But what other choice do they have? Jazz asks this of them. No one offers a better alternative, or at least one that Ratchet and Sunstreaker will accept.   
  
They've defied Cybertronian law once already. Threatening to outright offline their youngling is reason enough to go against their own allies.   
  
Though the fact remains that, at some point, they will face Knock Out on the battlefield and there's little Ratchet can do then. If Knock Out falls, he will have to mourn his youngling's loss. Such is the way of things.   
  
He wonders, in the end, which carries more mercy.   
  
Since Knock Out refuses to be helpful in any manner, they choose neutral ground to set him free. Ratchet's sure he has some way to contact the Decepticons on his own, or at least his assistant. He'll be fine on his own.   
  
Their group is small, only Jazz, Sunstreaker, and Ratchet present to see the Decepticon medic freed. Knock Out rubs his wrists where the cuffs had kept him mostly pliable, the look in his optics inscrutable. Oddly, he has no sharp retort or smart commentary to make. His gaze flickers between his genitor and his creator before he turns, breaks into a run, and then collapses into his alt-mode.   
  
Dust trails rise up behind him as he speeds into the distance.   
  
It hurts. There's no denying it. Ratchet feels as though Megatron has thrust his clawed hand into Ratchet's chest and squeezed his spark. Millennia spent searching for his youngling, and all he can do is watch Knock Out drive away. His youngling who is all but a stranger to him.   
  
None of them are family anymore. This war has made them strangers.   
  
Ratchet looks at Sunstreaker, his partner – or is that former partner? – has his optics locked on the horizon. His expression is unreadable, his energy field tightly contained. He doesn't spare a glance for Ratchet, as though determined to cast the medic from his life.   
  
That hurts, too. More than Knock Out's eagerness to be away from his caretakers. He's already lost his youngling today. Does he really want to stand here and lose his partner, too? Lose what's left of his family?   
  
“No point in stickin' around. Kid ain't comin' back,” Jazz says, his words cutting through the thick tension. He whirls on a heel and strides back toward the waiting Ground Bridge. “C'mon. War's still goin' and we got work to do.”   
  
Ratchet turns to follow.   
  
Sunstreaker lingers.   
  
Jazz doesn't pause as he calls out to the yellow mech. “Let's go, Sunny. Nothin' left to do here.”   
  
Expecting an irate retort or even a flare of anger, Ratchet finds himself surprised when Sunstreaker mutely agrees and starts to follow them toward the Ground Bridge. He finally looks at Ratchet, but it's more dismissal than acknowledgment.   
  
Ratchet's spark gives another painful lurch.   
  
Jazz enters the Ground Bridge first and Ratchet follows, with Sunstreaker bringing up the rear. They arrive back at the base to no fanfare, unsurprisingly, and the main command room is quiet. Bluestreak is at the controls, turning to greet them. No one else is present.   
  
“Welcome back,” he says, words cheerful, but the set of his doorwings belies his cheer. Bluestreak was not as close to Knock Out, but he knows how much he meant to his caretakers.   
  
“Thanks!” Jazz has a little pep in his step that Ratchet honestly can't tell if it's forced or not. Like he's trying to be cheerful to erase the simmering tension.   
  
Movement out of the corner of his optic is a streak of yellow and Ratchet turns, ignoring Jazz and Bluestreak. It feels like one of those moments, now or never. Sunstreaker is stalking away, toward the hallway containing their rooms. He isn't sparing a glance for anyone else in the room. What Ratchet can sense of his energy field is dark, troubled. Hurting.   
  
Ratchet calls out before logic stops him. “Sunstreaker.”   
  
The yellow mech pauses, but doesn't turn to acknowledge him. “I have nothing more to say to you.” His tone is cold and sharp.   
  
Ratchet continues before he can convince himself not to. “You don't have to talk,” he replies, keeping his vocalizer dialed down, though undoubtedly Jazz is listening. “Just listen.”   
  
The tension in Sunstreaker's frame is only outdone by the tension in his energy field. “Fine.”   
  
“Not out here.” Because Jazz and Bluestreak are making no efforts to hide the fact they are shamelessly eavesdropping, little gossip-mongers that they are.   
  
Sunstreaker half-turns, giving him a sidelong look, but gestures for Ratchet to follow him anyway.   
  
A moment of hesitation and Ratchet follows, feeling Jazz's optics on him the whole time. Mercifully, Jazz doesn't try to comm him. And he can only assume that Sideswipe is out on patrol, since the red twin hasn't popped up for the sake of commentary yet. Ratchet can half-imagine him here, standing on the sidelines and cheering them on.   
  
He trails a few steps behind Sunstreaker as the yellow mech leads him to the quarters that had been assigned to him and his twin. Sunstreaker never once checks over his shoulder to ensure that Ratchet is behind him, and once they are inside the small space, the door closed shut behind them, the silence that descends feels heavy.   
  
Sunstreaker's energy field is tightly contained, only bare wisps of it escaping and allowing Ratchet notice. The strongest of the emotions is pain, followed closely by regret and longing. The same which echo in Ratchet's own energy field. Sunstreaker's expression is closely guarded, something he has not done around Ratchet in millennia. As though they have that quickly become strangers.   
  
Ratchet feels as though he is intruding somewhere he ought not to be.   
  
Sunstreaker shifts with an audible clicking of armor plates. “Well?” he prompts.   
  
“Give me a fraggin' second!” Ratchet snaps, reacting as he always does when cornered, with belligerence.   
  
It becomes quickly obvious that his tactlessness is the wrong response when Sunstreaker's armor flattens and he straightens, moving to push past Ratchet. “I don't have that kind of time anymore, Ratchet,” he says curtly, paying the medic as little mind as though he were not worth considering.   
  
Ratchet reacts before he thinks the action through – how very dangerous it can be, Sunstreaker is a frontliner after all – and his fingers close about Sunstreaker's elbow, keeping him from leaving. The simple touch is enough to cause Ratchet's energy field to flare, pushing hungrily at Sunstreaker's, who seems to lose all ability to contain his own.   
  
They pulse, out of sync, but bearing the same painful emotion. Both thrumming with longing and need. It's enough to make Ratchet's spark flare within its armored chamber.   
  
“Please,” Ratchet says, and surprises himself with how gentle, near begging, his tone emerges.   
  
Sunstreaker doesn't pull his arm away, though he could with ease. He is significantly stronger than Ratchet. He ventilates audibly, as though performing a systems check in desperate urge to locate his composure.   
  
“I'm tired,” Sunstreaker says, the glyphs accompanying his words speaking of a strut-deep fatigue. “And I just had to watch my youngling willingly return to the Decepticons. So if you don't mind--”  
  
“I'm sorry.” It comes out in a rush, cutting off Sunstreaker's words because there's a sense of urgency here now.   
  
Sunstreaker can't wait anymore; Ratchet can't blame him for that. But Ratchet also can't honestly remember the last time he apologized for something. He's old, he's been around the universe a few times. He's made plenty of mistakes and he's learned from them. His certainty of self has always ensured that there's very little anymore he considers worthy of an apology.   
  
And yet, it has become necessary here.   
  
Sunstreaker startles, as surprised by the apology as Ratchet. He turns his helm and actually looks at Ratchet, as though seeing him for the first time this solar cycle. He still hasn't pulled away.   
  
Ratchet gathers his courage and soldiers on. This is his chance. He'd best not waste it.   
  
“I'm old, Sunstreaker.” He gentles his hold on Sunstreaker's arm, letting his fingers pick up a soft, soothing stroke. “I'm old, crotchety, and beyond romantic notions. My spark's no different. And I was afraid. No. No, I am afraid.”   
  
No lies. Not this time. He owes Sunstreaker as much.   
  
Besides, the truth is spilling out of him faster than he can manage anyway. He feels a bit like Bluestreak, but maybe that's for the better. “Afraid because it's permanent. Because I don't know what'll happen. Because I am who I am and you are you and I can't possibly be enough.”   
  
Ratchet shakes his head, frame feeling weirdly tight and too-small to contain his spark and systems. “Pit, that doesn't even make sense.”   
  
A gentle touch on the side of his helm and Ratchet looks up, into Sunstreaker's optics.   
  
“It makes sense to me,” Sunstreaker replies, and the dizzying churn of his energy field starts to even out, still pulsing dark emotions, but not as nauseating anymore. “I'm an orphaned gladiator with an artistic spark. Beyond that, I'm a cursed twin. What do I have to offer the CMO of the Autobots?”   
  
Ratchet's systems stutter in revelation.  
  
They are the same, he and Sunstreaker, so sure that they are not enough for the other. Why was he ever afraid of this?   
  
Why did he ever hesitate?   
  
Ratchet's free hand rests on his chestplate, feeling the pulsing spin of his spark behind the thick armor and the kibble of his alt-mode. “Bond with me.”   
  
Sunstreaker's optics spiral outward, betraying his surprise. “What?”   
  
“I've already lost my youngling,” Ratchet replies and the certainty in his voice shocks even himself. “I'm not losing you, too.”   
  
“Our,” Sunstreaker corrects.  
  
Ratchet smiles softly. “Yes. Our youngling.” He reaches up, curling a hand against Sunstreaker's face, one digit brushing his helm finials. “Bond with me?”   
  
Sunstreaker ventilates noisily, but his energy field betrays the true depth of his emotions. Ratchet is bombarded with pleasure and relief and an underlying tremor of sheer joy.   
  
“You're only asking because you feel guilty.”   
  
Ratchet's thumb strokes the soft metal of Sunstreaker's faceplate. “No, I'm not. But if you don't believe me, you'll know the truth when you feel my spark.”   
  
In all their millennia of being partners, they've only shared sparks a grand total of two times. Once before Ratchet allowed his spark-carrying protocols to be reactivated, and then again after. Each of those two times had been shallow merges, bare brushes of the outer edges of their spark corona. At most, they had been able to sense the other's immediate motions and trade pleasure. And somehow, that shallow merge had been enough to activate the fostering protocols, causing Ratchet to spin off a piece of his spark and Sunstreaker to do the same, both budded whirls of spark energy swirling into an entirely newspark.   
  
A spark merge with the intent of bonding, however, is quite different. Nothing is left hidden. It hurts as much as it is pleasurable. Ratchet's spark will all but disassociate in order to blend with Sunstreaker's spark energies, leaving the both of them forever changed. The bond Ratchet intends will be permanent, the most absolute kind. Nothing will be able to break it.   
  
There are other, shallower bonds, to be sure. Ones similar to what they had utilized when merging to create Knock Out. But Ratchet refuses to do anything half-welded anymore. For Sunstreaker, it will be all or nothing. He doesn't want anyone else, never has, and it's time Ratchet showed that.   
  
“All right,” Sunstreaker says. “Let's do this.” He turns in toward Ratchet, one hand grabbing for Ratchet's free arm and pulling the medic closer to him. “I'll bond with you.”   
  
Relief races across Ratchet's shoulders. “Good,” he says, and drops his hands, reaching with one to unspool the cables to either side of his thoracic cavity. “Open your chestplates then.” If his fingers tremble a bit, well, Ratchet will call it anticipation.  
  
Sunstreaker laughs, cupping Ratchet's face and pressing their forehelms together. “Hold on a moment, Ratchet. You'd like to enjoy this, wouldn't you?”   
  
If he were any younger, he'd feel his faceplates heat with embarrassment. “I thought that was a given, considering it's you.”   
  
Treated to the rare sight of Sunstreaker's smile. “Mmm. I'll take that compliment with grace. I meant, however, that wouldn't you rather such a thing was automatic rather than manual.”   
  
Confusion echoes in Ratchet's energy field. “Automatic?”   
  
“Foreplay, Ratchet. By Primus, you're not that ancient!” Sunstreaker shutters his optics, pulsing _want_ and _affection_ through his energy field. “You want to prove you mean it, I get that. But let's try to enjoy ourselves, yes?”   
  
“Yes,” Ratchet agrees, a thrum in his vocalizer. He sets a hand on Sunstreaker's hip plating, tugging Sunstreaker closer to him. “Shall we move to the berth?”   
  
He hears Sunstreaker's fans kick on in approval. It is all the answer Ratchet needs. Though reluctant, he withdraws from Sunstreaker long enough to turn toward the berth, which is just barely large enough to fit the two of them. It takes an awkward moment of position deciding and clambering over each other and the berth before they find something that'll accommodate them both.   
  
Ratchet straddles Sunstreaker's larger frame, the yellow mech using the wall behind him as a support. It's perfect, really, because this way their hands are free and Ratchet is welcome to touch as much as he wants to. And vice versa.   
  
And touch he does, the flat of his palms dragging over Sunstreaker's armor, delving into sensitive seams and brushing against delicate wires. Ratchet's own vents kick on with a vengeance and he flares his energy field outward, trying to set up a feedback loop.   
  
Sunstreaker is no less busy, though his touches are more focused, exploring the unfamiliar terrain of Ratchet's new alt-mode. Artist’s fingers trek over Ratchet's dorsal kibble, and Sunstreaker's energy field coils toward Ratchet with intent.   
  
“Remember the last time we did this?” Ratchet finds himself asking, before he can stop the words, though the memory probably only holds pain now. “Or well, close enough to this anyway.”   
  
“It had a purpose then, too,” Sunstreaker replies, optics spiraling inward as though he's bringing up the memory file and replaying it internally. “Except we called it a trial run.”   
  
Ratchet chuckles. “A trial that gave us Knock Out.”   
  
Sunstreaker pauses, one hand shifting to pull Ratchet closer so that their chestplates bump. “Is that what you want?”   
  
“No,” Ratchet answers honestly, fingers provoking a shudder of pleasure. “I want it all this time. No turning back.”   
  
Sunstreaker's grip is near-painful, hard enough to leave dents, but Ratchet doesn't protest. He just arches into the touch.   
  
“Are you sure?” Sunstreaker asks, and the need in his vocalizer makes Ratchet's spark skip.   
  
“Yes, I'm sure!” Tired of being questioned, Ratchet reaches for a gap in Sunstreaker's plating, fingers teasing his left thoracic port. “Connect with me and I'll show you.”   
  
The yellow mech's answer is to draw out his interfacing cable and hold it out, no hesitation, only trust in his movements. Neither of them has ever been hacked, at least to Ratchet's knowledge in Sunstreaker's case, but it is still a matter of trust. Taking Sunstreaker's cable in hand, Ratchet sends the command for a piece of his own plating to shift aside, allowing him to plug Sunstreaker into his right thoracic port.   
  
It is an eerie sensation, if indeed one can assign physical sense to an entirely intangible act, to feel another mech move into your systems. Medics rarely perform such a connection while their patient is conscious. Ratchet, himself, has only medically linked to one conscious bot in his entire existence – Jazz – because the Special Ops mech has an.... aversion to being unconscious during a link.   
  
Story for another time.   
  
Ratchet isn't sure what to expect from Sunstreaker, but this almost-hesitant yet eager sliding inside of him is far from the top of the list. His entrance is accompanied by a dizzying burst of pleasure, an attack on two fronts, his energy field and riding along the surge between their connection. Ratchet shudders, one hand struggling to balance itself by gripping Sunstreaker's shoulder, while the other shakily draws free his own cable.   
  
Sunstreaker takes it from him, almost over-eager, and plugs Ratchet into his left thoracic port. Ratchet's optics offline as his focus shifts, their connections pulsing back and forth in an attempt to synchronize. His grip on Sunstreaker's shoulder tightens as he pushes into Sunstreaker's systems, affection flaring to him when he realizes that Sunstreaker has dropped everything – firewalls and protective protocols – without having to be asked. He's completely open to Ratchet in such a way that few mechs ever dare to be. With this much access, Ratchet could do anything he wanted and Sunstreaker wouldn't be able to stop him. He could reprogram his partner, destroy him from the inside-out, shut off his spark containment, _anything_.   
  
That level of trust is humbling. Terribly humbling.   
  
At once, Ratchet feels ashamed for clinging to his deepest firewall, the one that protects his most important data, access to his processors, and his locked memories. (Though to be fair, if there's one thing he can never allow Sunstreaker to access, it's all the files he has on his fellow Autobots and patients. There are medical ethics involved in that.) It's pure reflex for Ratchet to protect those things. Part of him hadn't even acknowledged that those security codes were still in effect.   
  
“Trust has never been the issue,” Sunstreaker says, aloud, having caught the edges of Ratchet's thoughts due to their connection. “You do know that you're the only medic Sides and I trust, right? Other than First Aid.”   
  
Well, he knows it now.   
  
Ratchet lifts his free hand, caressing the thin seam in Sunstreaker's chestplates. A thrum of pleasure arcs through their connection and Ratchet shudders.   
  
“I should have done this millennia ago,” Ratchet says, and feels the ache of his regret, and he's a mech who's tried to live a lifetime without such a useless thing. “Before we ever left a dying Cybertron.”   
  
Sunstreaker's fans whirr louder, heat pouring through his systems, bringing up multiple overheating warnings that Ratchet can see through their link. He's been ignoring his own systems ping for some time now.   
  
“Yeah, but maybe it's better this way, too,” Sunstreaker replies, twitching when Ratchet's exploring fingers dip between gaps in his plating, stroking thick cabling.   
  
Affection overwhelming him, Ratchet pushes a surge of pleasure and need across the cables, pelting Sunstreaker with the arousing emotions. Sunstreaker arches toward him, a wordless sound escaping him. The yellow mech retaliates with a burst of trust-want-please.   
  
With a nearly audible click, Ratchet feels their systems synchronize, and then it seems like the emotions bombard him from all directions. He presses closer to Sunstreaker, shuddering as electricity crawls across his plating, stimulating his systems, making him tingle everywhere. He feels surrounded on all sides by Sunstreaker, his partner, his soon to be bonded, and he feels safe. Wanted. Loved.  
  
Yes. Love.   
  
For all that Ratchet is beyond romantic notions, he can recognize this. The feeling that Sunstreaker transmits to him. A sense of owning and belonging and protecting and defending and treasuring and wanting nothing more than to online every solar cycle next to Ratchet.   
  
“Primus, Sunstreaker!” he groans, again carrying that sense of inadequacy. That Sunstreaker deserves someone much more than this irascible, bitter, and jaded medic.   
  
\-- _No_ \-- Sunstreaker transmits across their link, giving him the equivalent of an intangible stroke. -- _Not bitter. Honest. Not irascible. Blunt_.--  
  
And then he sends Ratchet a memory of himself, through Sunstreaker's optics, of the orn they first met, when Sunstreaker had dragged in the broken, leaking body of his brother, limping on one twisted ankle himself with an arm dangling from a broken shoulder strut.   
  
Ratchet sees himself seeing the two twins stumbling in, leaking energon all over his freshly cleaned floor, and immediately starts bellowing. He yells at them for being stupid gladiators, complaining that he doesn't have the time to be fixing mechs foolish enough to keep getting themselves broken over and over again.   
  
He sees himself rapping Sunstreaker upside the helm when the yellow mech tries to protest, when Sunstreaker snarls, bears his denta, protesting as Ratchet tugs away the more injured Sideswipe.   
  
He feels what Sunstreaker feels. The surprise. The shock. The anger. The approving respect.   
  
Ratchet sees himself fixing Sideswipe while Sunstreaker looms over him like a threatening golem and Ratchet snapping for Sunstreaker to get on a berth because he's next. That'd he'd better not so much as twitch an armor panel until Ratchet fixes his equally foolish brother, because he knew, of course he knew, at first glance what they are to each other.   
  
There's no hesitation on Ratchet's part. There's wide-opticked staring on Sunstreaker's part.   
  
That Ratchet hadn't thrown them out the moment he recognized them to be spark twins surprised Sunstreaker. That he'd consented to fixing them shocked Sunstreaker further.   
  
That he'd punted them out the door the next cycle without so much as demanding a cred in payment nearly locked up Sunstreaker's processor.   
  
He sees when Sunstreaker decides that from now on, they would always return to Ratchet's clinic for their repairs.   
  
And then, the memory ends and Ratchet finds himself back in real time.   
  
“Blunt,” Sunstreaker repeats, this time aloud, “is good. You don't play word games and I get it. I get you.”   
  
Ratchet's spark hums behind his chestplates, lurching in its confines, as though eager to join with Sunstreaker's. He pushes all of his crowding feelings into their link, his desire to be with Sunstreaker, his love for their youngling, his regret for his hesitation, _everything_.   
  
And Sunstreaker returns those honest emotions with more pleasure. With acceptance and desire and understanding.   
  
Electricity crackles across Ratchet's frame and leaps across the mere inches between he and Sunstreaker, crawling over yellow plating insistently. Another sparkfelt groan escapes Sunstreaker and one hand hooks around Ratchet, pressing against his dorsal plating and pushing them together with a grate of metal on metal.   
  
“Primus, I want you,” Ratchet manages to grit out, with that blunt honesty that Sunstreaker seems to appreciate so greatly. “Always have. Always will.”   
  
Blue optics flare brightly at the admission and Sunstreaker's fingers delve into gaps in Ratchet's dorsal plating, pressing firmly against sensor bundles, making Ratchet arch against him.   
  
An audible click echoes in Sunstreaker's quarters before Ratchet's face is bathed in a golden-white gleam, the glow of Sunstreaker's spark pouring out of the thin part in his chestplates. Captivated, Ratchet lifts a hand, stroking a finger down the gap and watching as Sunstreaker's chestplates shift further apart, completely baring him to Ratchet's optics.   
  
Beautiful is the first word that comes to mind. Every mech's spark is a little different. The colors change. The shape. The frequency. The patterns of pulse. No scientist really understands why, but theories have been made regarding personality and spark memories and the like.   
  
Ratchet recalls all of this clinically, even while the greater part of him can observe only that Sunstreaker's spark is beautiful. He's seen it before, an amount of times he can count on the fingers of one hand. But that's usually in the midst of some life-saving procedure, when Ratchet's been terrified of losing Sunstreaker and struggling to fix him. And their prior merges had been so shallow, chestplates cracked, a bare gleam seeping through.   
  
Not like this. Never like this. Each quiet flare a testament to Sunstreaker's emotions, the baring of his spark an open invitation. The off-white corona that reaches with curling tendrils for Ratchet's fingers as his hand hovers over the perfectly spherical spark.   
  
Sunstreaker shudders, intense almost-painful pleasure, transmitting through their link at Ratchet's tentative touch.   
  
“Good?” he asks in what humans would call a breathless anticipation.   
  
Sunstreaker's helm tilts in a nod, his fingers squeezing in their grip on Ratchet. “Indescribably.” His optics gleam brighter, nearly white, his plating giving a tangible shiver. “Please, Ratch.”   
  
The pleading, the shortening of his name makes Ratchet shudder. He ever-so-gently curls his fingers, stroking the surging energies of Sunstreaker's spark. A deeply aroused moan echoes in Sunstreaker's vocalizer, laced with static, his upper body surging toward Ratchet. Energy crackles across his frame and Ratchet trails his fingers over the pulsing spark again, captivated by the sight of his partner in the throes of pleasure.   
  
It's a strange sensation, touching a spark, like cool energy licking at his fingertips. A tingle settles in the sensitive sensory nodes of his hand, like tiny static shocks. But more pleasing is watching Sunstreaker's reactions, watching the proud frontliner shudder in ecstasy, frame shifting beneath Ratchet, cooling fans whining in their struggle to dispel the heat in his circuits.   
  
Beautiful.   
  
Sunstreaker's hand shifts, stroking down Ratchet's chestplate, struggling to speak through the shudders wracking his frame. “You going to show me, too?”   
  
He answers without words, sending the command for his chestplates to shift aside, the extra kibble of his alt-mode also moving up and out of the way. Three separate layers of armor part along a central seam, sliding aside to reveal the silver-green glow of his spark, less bright than Sunstreaker's, but still enough to illuminate the room.   
  
Sunstreaker makes a noise of approval, his fingers dipping into the tendrils emerging from the core of Ratchet's spark. Pleasure instantly shoots across Ratchet's sensory net. He jerks out of surprise. No wonder Sunstreaker had reacted so strongly. It felt as if Sunstreaker had touched every sensitive seam in his plating simultaneously.   
  
A smirk curves Sunstreaker's lip plates. “Good?” he asks, just as Ratchet had asked earlier, leaning closer toward Ratchet's open chassis, his fingers toying with the clinging tendrils of spark and making energy crackle over Ratchet's circuits.   
  
“Tease!” Ratchet gasps, joints and struts tensing at the bursts of pleasure, pushing him closer and closer to overload. Even stranger than touching Sunstreaker's spark, is the feel of another mech touching his own.   
  
It doesn't have sensation, like one could really name sensation. For instance, there aren't any sensors within the coalesced energy of his spark. But somehow, every time Sunstreaker twitches his fingers in the silver-green corona, Ratchet can feel it in the very core of it. His entire frame thrums with heat and need.   
  
And then Sunstreaker leans forward and mouths the edge of Ratchet's parted chest seam, face achingly close to Ratchet's spark. He makes a noise that's made of static, lurching forward, fingers dragging over yellow paint and scraping off flecks. He can't describe the pleasure that rockets through him.   
  
“Primus,” Sunstreaker breathes, looking up at him with optics gone white. “I could tease you like this for an orn.”   
  
“Please don't,” Ratchet gasps out, tones strained, pushed to the very limits of his endurance. He's shuddering from helm to pede.   
  
The frontliner nudges them closer together, enough that the outer edges of their sparks reach for each other, the most distant flares brushing together.   
  
“But I could,” Sunstreaker says, his vocalizer carrying a strong surge of lust. “I could pin you down, make you overload over and over again... Primus! That would be incredible.” He can feel the yellow mech's lust like a powerful wave, surging over their hardline connection. It completely swamps over Ratchet's thoughts.   
  
Ratchet groans, inarticulate, the image building in the back of his processor. The sound of it both intoxicating and appealing.  
  
“You'd offline me for sure!” he manages to get out, through a vocalizer laced with static. “Blow a few circuits definitely!”  
  
Sunstreaker nuzzles against Ratchet's chestplates. “You used to like that,” he says, tone a mixture of longing and affection.   
  
“I still would. Just...” Ratchet reaches out, lays a hand on Sunstreaker's helm, fingers caressing the side finials. “I want to bond with you. Right now.”   
  
Sunstreaker's engine revs and he straightens, putting their open chestplates in closer proximity, enough that Ratchet gives another shudder of pleasure. “No more waiting,” he agrees.   
  
Ratchet shifts as well, so that their sparks are in perfect alignment, already hungrily reaching for each other. The bare brushes of energy send tingles across Ratchet's circuits, and he can see energy visibly crackling across his plating and Sunstreaker's.   
  
This is it.  
  
There's a fantasy, a rumor, that merges with the intent of bonding allow Cybertronians to see anything and everything about their potential bonded's lifetime. This is both true and false. The spark doesn't carry data the same way a processor or memory bank does. It's as tangible as it is intangible.   
  
What one partner sees in the other is not the perfect recollection of viewing memory files, but rather, the distorted, hazy emotional impressions of spark memory. Understanding the very core of a Cybertronian. The very nature of the mech or femme.   
  
It's the hardline connection that allows the other access which preempts the rumor, but the spark merge itself is all about impressions. Gauzy shadows. Feeling not yourself but someone else and it's natural, normal.   
  
Ratchet shudders as the edges of their spark coronas touch, tendrils of silver-green reaching for the pulsing waves of white-gold. His optics shutter closed as he tilts his helm toward Sunstreaker, their forehelms coming together with a soft clang. He can feel Sunstreaker's energy field pulsing in time with his, as though they have become of one mind about this, perfectly in sync.   
  
A yellow-plated arm curls around Ratchet tighter, drawing him closer, narrowing the gap between their open chestplates inch by electrifying inch. It's a strange sensation, their spark energies knitting together, as pleasurable as it is unpleasant, like a ghost crawling in his sensors that's only eased by drawing his fingers over it. The relief is wonderful, but the sensation continues to nag.   
  
Ratchet's fans are a loud whine in the room, nearly drowned out by the sound of Sunstreaker's. Part of him is concerned they'll both overheat before they're through, but their programming works as it is supposed to. The charge in Ratchet's circuits grows stronger and stronger, electricity dancing between their plating now. His grip on Sunstreaker's plating tightens, denting, and neither of them care.   
  
A few more inches gained and Ratchet groans, pleasure more than pain now, feeling Sunstreaker's more vibrant spark eagerly twining about his own. There's a moment right before their chestplates come flush together, their spark cores a mere-half inch away. Anticipation sends Ratchet's thoughts awhirl.   
  
And then he's Sunstreaker. And he's Ratchet. Somehow, both at once.   
  
He's a little copper youngling, looking longingly at his brother's brilliant scarlet paint and definitive finials, feeling such love and jealousy that the emotions become hopelessly entangled.   
  
He's a bright-opticed and eager-servoed mech about to set foot into the famed Medical University of Protihex, expectation heavy on white shoulders.   
  
He's sleeping somewhere warm, protected by the mech in blue. His brother is warm at his back, their systems in perfect, opposite synchronization.  
  
He's tasting high grade for the first time, the bright bubble-fresh taste of it dancing on his glossa, the sweet burn in his tanks something to savor.  
  
He's in the center of the ring, the crowd’s cheers echoing in his audials, thrumming from the energon-soaked floor into his pedes, pulsing in tune with his spark.   
  
He's ducking to avoid the piece of memorabilia tossed at his helm, shattering against the wall behind him, the vicious words of anger pounding at his audials.   
  
He's in the middle of a tiny clinic tucked away in the shadows of Uraya, watching his brother being put back together by the only mech he's ever let in outside of his twin.   
  
He's looking down at the sparkling in his arms, protoform lovingly designed by he and his partner, painted to perfection, not a single piece of plating out of place. Recharging peacefully, beautiful gold-green spark a dim glow before he closes Knock Out's chestplates.   
  
Their sparkling. Their child.   
  
He's looking at his partner who's looking back at him. Smiling.   
  
And then there's pleasure. It jolts through his entire system, makes him jerk and twitch. His spark whirls faster and faster, vertigo rushing in. He might be falling, but he's not doing it alone so he'll be all right.   
  
His armor is too heavy; he leaves it behind. His weapons, too. In fact, leave it all. Plating and frame and circuits and sensors and cydraulics and energon lines. Warnings and errors pop up, but he dismisses them without so much as glancing at the messages.   
  
This is what's right. This is how things are supposed to be.   
  
His spark surges and swells, completely enmeshed in the spark of another. Energy fields hum in perfect harmony. And for a single moment, they are someone else entirely. And then the overload crashes over them, a swamping wave of electrified pleasure that bursts across their sensor net and makes their frames rattle.   
  
Their awareness turns to shades of grey, frames locked in the repeated swell of overload. Fans struggling to cool. Auxiliary systems shut down, unneeded at the moment. Focus given only to the new sensation of spark returning to frame, but different now. A little heavier, a bit brighter. Pulsing to a new, shared beat.   
  
_Shutdown Imminent._  
  
One warning refuses to be dismissed. It flashes over and over in his HUD. His fans struggle to drag in cooler air. He's strutless, completely without strength, his spark stretched taut and too large to be confined to his own chamber.   
  
_Reboot Required.  
  
Medical Recharge Initiated in Three, Two, One--_

 

_***  
_


	13. Chapter 13

“Ratchet!”   
  
His optics snap open, staring at a dull brown ceiling. Awareness is slow to come, all of his systems working on the minimum necessary processing kernels. Optics, functional. Audials, too. Movement? Not so much.   
  
Frag it, he hurts. He feels like he's spent the whole night drinking liters of high grade with nothing to burn off the extra energy. His joints are tight and creaky. His plating feels far too heavy, and he's glad his mobility is offline. He doesn't want to move.   
  
“Yo! Ratch!”   
  
Jazz's somewhat panicky tone makes Ratchet's attention refocus and a sensor sweep informs him that the TIC is the only other one in the room, other than Sunstreaker on Ratchet's right side, deep in recharge.   
  
“ ** _What_**?” Ratchet snarls. Oh, look at that. His vocalizer is working, though his faceplate is not quite matching up to his vocalizations.   
  
To his left, just out of view of his optical feed, Jazz pings something off the side of Ratchet's helm – a polishing cloth, judging by the softness of it. “Ya slaggers!” Jazz snaps, though he doesn't sound angry. Just annoyed. “I didn't mean bond right now. Percy's been fretting over Sides since sundown and here I come to find my medic, who’s neck deep in medical defrag!”   
  
Oh.   
  
“Ungh,” is Ratchet's ever-so-intelligent reply. His processors aren't as alert as he'd like them to be, barely registering Jazz's words. “Side effect of th' bond,” he replies, slurring his words a bit. “Sideswipe'll be fine.”   
  
“...Who?” Sunstreaker's slurred tones rise weakly from behind Ratchet.   
  
He reaches behind him, lightly smacking Sunstreaker's armor. “Nothin'. Go back to recharge.”   
  
“Nnn.” There's a click as Sunstreaker's systems settle back into the much-needed recharge. Bonding can take a lot out of mech.   
  
“Huh,” Jazz says and steps into view, one finger scratching at his chinplate. “So ya really did it? I guess congratulations'd be in order, if I weren't so torqued at ya.”   
  
Ratchet waves a hand vaguely in the air. “No sense in waiting,” he replies shortly, the urge to recharge tugging at him mightily, status reports popping up in his HUD and demanding attention. “Waited too long already.”   
  
He can feel Sunstreaker though. Even without his bonded – bonded – lying right next to him, Ratchet can feel Sunstreaker. It's a soft, quiescent feeling what with Sunstreaker being in recharge again, but it's comfortable. His spark has a new sensation, too. Pulsing to a different beat. If he were to crack open his chestplates in front of a mirror, Ratchet'd bet twenty creds that his spark looks different, too.   
  
Forever changed. Eternally bonded.   
  
He should be terrified right now. He's not.   
  
“Ain't that the truth,” Jazz replies with a chuckle and crosses his arms over his chestplate, visor gleaming down at Ratchet. “Fine. Yer both off duty for the next three solar cycles. That's as long as I can spare ya for.”   
  
“Thanks,” Ratchet says, starting to lose his grip on consciousness, systems shifting him into mandatory recharge once again. “Now go on and let us recharge.” It takes a great deal of effort, but Ratchet manages to turn over so that he is facing Sunstreaker, their chassis coming into immediate contact.   
  
He can feel Sunstreaker's spark behind the layers of armor on his chestplate, and Ratchet's own spark hums contently. Yes, this feels much better.   
  
Behind him, Jazz makes some kind of startled/amused sound before he whirls on a silent heel and heads toward the doorway. “Just so ya know,” he says as the door pushes open with a noisy screech. “Both of ya're gettin' punishment duty when yer back on shift. But congratulations anyway.”   
  
He leaves with another audible chuckle and the door screeching shut behind him. Already heading back toward recharge, Ratchet barely acknowledges Jazz's parting commentary.   
  
He's more interested in the sight of his bonded's face in repose. Optics shuttered, expression clear of stress, energy field softly buzzing contentment and affection. One yellow-plated arm rises, even in recharge, slinging across Ratchet and tugging him closer. Their chestplates now in complete contact, vibrating near-audibly. Ratchet's spark does another affectionate surge forward, pulsing warmly.   
  
Mmm. Yes. Now he feels complete.   
  
Ratchet slides back into recharge.

 

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this fic will be continued in a sequel entitled Critical Mass. In which our stalwart heroes try to get Optimus back from Megatron's evil clutches, the consequences of Ratchet and Sunstreaker's bonding come to light, Knock Out returns to the Nemesis a somewhat changed bot, some new arrivals make things difficult for everyone, and Starscream returns! I'll be drawing heavily from current events in season two, but I'm also going to go a bit AU. It's going to be fun!


End file.
